Post by mhbruin on Apr 27, 2022 9:04:51 GMT -8
US Vaccine Data - We Have Now Administered 572 Million Shots (Population 333 Million)
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California Precipitation (Updated Tuesday April 19)
We had some rain up north this week.
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I Tried to Grab the Fog. I Mist.
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Today's Worst Person in the World Nominees
Like My Mom Always Said, "Chew Your Companies Before Swallowing".
Tesla shares have fallen after investor concerns that boss Elon Musk may have to sell shares in the electric car maker to help pay for the takeover of Twitter.
Tesla had more than $125bn (£99.3bn) wiped off its market value on Tuesday.
One analyst said the slump in Tesla's value may pose problems for a $12.5bn loan Mr Musk has secured against his stake in the company.
The issues highlight the challenges he faces as he tries to run five firms.
Tesla's share price has taken a hammering, with some investors wondering whether Mr Musk's Twitter purchase is bad for Tesla.
Shares dropped 12.2% from just over $1tn to $906bn.
Some are now asking whether Elon Musk, by trying to buy Twitter, may have bitten off more than he can chew.
Isn't This the Same Bank That Kept Previous Guy Afloat With Shady Loans?
Deutsche Bank raised eyebrows earlier this month by becoming the first major bank to forecast a US recession, albeit a "mild" one.
Now, it's warning of a deeper downturn caused by the Federal Reserve's quest to knock down stubbornly high inflation.
"We will get a major recession," Deutsche Bank economists wrote in a report to clients on Tuesday.
The problem, according to the bank, is that while inflation may be peaking, it will take a "long time" before it gets back down to the Fed's goal of 2%. That suggests the central bank will raise interest rates so aggressively that it hurts the economy.
The Clock is Ticking. Then End is Nigh.
Lawyers for the New York State Attorney General's Office said they are nearly finished with their civil investigation into the Trump Organization, after taking steps to unravel the real estate company's assets that they described as being as complex as a "Russian nesting doll."
They still want to search two cell phones belonging to former President Donald Trump and the laptop and desktop of his longtime executive assistant Rhona Graff, but investigators told a judge this week they're moving quickly.
"The process is near the end," Kevin Wallace, senior enforcement counsel at the New York State Attorney General's Office, said Monday.
A third-party firm hired to search the Trump Organization's files had identified 151 custodians, or people or entities, that might have documents sought by the attorney general's office, but Wallace said they are focusing on the "most important outstanding pieces of information" because the clock is ticking for it to file a lawsuit.
The statute of limitations for various laws under consideration goes back several years, but the tolling agreement with the Trump Organization that paused the clock expires on Saturday. Even as the agreement expires, it could still be several weeks before the attorney general's office decides its next step in the investigation.
Another Perry Could Be Saying, "Oops!"
Newly obtained text messages and recent court filings fill in significant gaps about the key role a little-known Pennsylvania Republican congressman played at almost every turn in scheming to reverse or delay certification of the 2020 election.
The texts, which were among those selectively provided by Donald Trump's former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to the House select committee, show Rep. Scott Perry pushing to have the nation's top intelligence official investigate baseless conspiracy theories and working to replace the US acting attorney general with an acolyte willing to do Trump's bidding.
"From an Intel friend: DNI needs to task NSA to immediately seize and begin looking for international comms related to Dominion," Perry wrote to Meadows on November 12, just five days after the election was called for Joe Biden.
In the text, which has not been previously reported, Perry appears to be urging Meadows to get John Ratcliffe, then-Director of National Intelligence, to order the National Security Agency to investigate debunked claims that Dominion voting machines were hacked by China.
Perry, a five-term congressman, is a retired Brigadier General with nearly 40 years of military service, including flying combat missions in Iraq. Given his extensive background, he is likely familiar with the inner-workings of government intelligence.
You May Be on January 6 Overload, But a Lot Has Happened in the Past 72 Hours
CNN: Here's everything you need to know, and what to watch for next.
The Senators Represent Themselves, the Liquor, and Tobacco Interests. They Don't Represent the Voters.
Most Senators Still Oppose Doing A Hugely Popular Thing: Legalizing Marijuana
The federal government is strikingly out of step with public opinion on cannabis.
Even though a supermajority of Americans say marijuana should be legal for adults and the House has passed a bill to legalize it, major cannabis reform remains unlikely this year.
Why? Because Republicans and a few Democratic senators don’t want to do it.
Earlier this month, the House passed a bill that would legalize weed at the federal level, expunge cannabis-related criminal records and set the stage for a nationwide legal marijuana industry. But that bill is almost certainly dead on arrival in the Senate.
Instead, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) have been trying to build consensus for a Senate version of cannabis reform.
The trio collaborated on a discussion draft last year that, like the House bill, would have legalized marijuana by removing it from the list of drugs banned under the Controlled Substances Act, which lists “marihuana” in the same category as heroin. The bill would also have expunged nonviolent federal criminal records and allowed marijuana businesses greater access to financial services.
Schumer has said he intends to introduce the new version of the bill sometime before the August recess. It’s an open question whether it’ll get a vote.
The problem for Schumer is the math. Democrats control 50 seats in the 100-member Senate, and they would need 60 votes to move a cannabis bill, meaning at least 10 Republicans would need to come aboard, and possibly more, since several Democratic senators seem like they’re not ready to legalize weed.
“I’m not where many people in my party are,” Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) told HuffPost. The senator, whose state voted to legalize marijuana in 2020, expressed concern with implementation of a cannabis legalization on the national level.
“Are we set up to keep it out of the hands of young people? What’s the law going to be? Can anybody smoke it? There’s a lot of ifs and buts there,” Tester said. (Based on that "logic", alcohol and tobacco should be illegal.)
SThe illegality of marijuana at the federal level is strikingly out of step with popular opinion. A poll this month found that 69% of Americans favor full legalization, and that’s a typical survey finding. Support for legal weed has grown in recent years as most states have legalized the drug for medicinal use, with 18 states greenlighting cannabis for recreational use.
Firing Squad? No Lethal Injection? These Folks LOVE Guns.
Oklahoma GOP Chair John Bennett, who is running for Congress, said he wants to put Dr. Anthony Fauci in front of a firing squad ― and the crowd at a campaign event clapped and cheered.
“We’re fighting communist Democrats, establishment RINOs!” Bennett ranted in a video that Right Wing Watch shared online Tuesday, which has now gone viral.
“We’re fighting against a system that stole the election in 2020 and nobody had been held accountable,” Bennett continued, parroting former President Donald Trump’s baseless election fraud claims. “We’re in a war with bureaucrats that have forced vaccine mandates on us, mask mandates on us.”
Bennett then railed against something he described as “wokeness confusion,” which he alleged is being pushed “down our throats now.”
Then came his sinister line about Fauci, who has been targeted by repeated death threats for his public health work during the coronavirus pandemic.
“And by the way, we should try Anthony Fauci and put him in front of a firing squad,” said Bennett, not really expanding on what crime he believes Fauci has committed.
Speaking of Gun-Loving QOP Wackos, This One Should Be on the No-Fly List
Madison Cawthorn, a Republican congressman from North Carolina, was caught trying to go through security with a loaded gun at Charlotte Douglas International Airport Tuesday morning, according to multiple sources.
This was the second time the controversial congressman has been stopped trying to bring a weapon through airport security.
TSA officers spotted the gun at the checkpoint and called airport police.
Cawthorn was issued a citation for possession of a dangerous weapon on city property by Charlotte Mecklenburg police.
He was later released, and the CMPD took possession of the firearm, which is normal procedure, police said.
Is TucKGBer Aiding and Abetting? Maybe He Needs To Be In Front of a Firing Squad.
Frank Figliuzzi, the FBI’s former assistant director for counterintelligence, this week torched Tucker Carlson for pushing pro-Russian talking points on his prime time Fox News show.
Figliuzzi, during an appearance on the Really American PAC’s “Talking Heads” show, said Carlson’s on-air parroting of Kremlin propaganda before and during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has “gone way beyond free speech.”
Most recently, Carlson suggested that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy should be audited before the U.S. sends more aid to the country.
“I took an oath of office when I became an FBI agent to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution,” said Figliuzzi. “That means I was willing to risk my life for somebody like Tucker Carlson’s right to free speech.”
But Putin is committing war crimes and terrorism in Ukraine, and “those who aid and abet him are aiding and abetting terrorism,” he continued.
And with clips of Carlson’s comments being broadcast by Russia’s state media, Figliuzzi said “you’ve got to stop and say, wait a minute, this isn’t free speech anymore. This is now being our own people deliberately being used by an enemy against us.”
Texas Used to Be Part of Mexico. Does That Give Mexico the Right to Take It Back?
He Could Be #3
"Positioned to be third in line to the presidency nine months from now as speaker of the House, McCarthy will lead a conference of radicals, nihilists, and some people who likely committed federal crimes. Shouldn’t Democrats be talking about this?"
Add This to the List of Things She Doesn't Know
Sticking with Troth Senchal
At a rally in Ohio on Saturday, Trump touted his network. Sort of.
“Because of this digital tyranny we had to give the American people their voice back by building something called troth, truth, senchal, Truth Social,” Trump said.
The slip-up had “The Daily Show” host Trevor Noah in stitches Tuesday night.
“You had one job, one job!” he cracked. “It’s your social media platform and you messed up the name? It’s almost like every time Trump speaks, his own mouth stages an insurrection.”
I'm Not Cancelling Anyone I Follow on Twitter. I Don't Follow Anyone. Not Even Taylor Swift.
Twitter saw mass “organic” deactivations and huge fluctuations in follower numbers for some of the platform’s highest-profile users in the days after Elon Musk agreed to a $44 billion takeover deal of the social media giant.
According to an NBC News report published Tuesday, the follower numbers for some of Twitter’s most-followed accounts, including former President Barack Obama, singers Katy Perry and Taylor Swift all dropped by hundreds of thousands. Obama, who is Twitter’s most-followed user with 131.7 million followers, saw his follower count fall by 300,000 since Monday. Perry, who has 108.8 million followers, lost 200,000.
Twitter routinely purges the platform of bots and fake accounts which can lead to follower counts dropping but the company confirmed to NBC News that the recent drops were “organic” and not automated or deletion of bots, meaning hundreds of thousands of users accounts are voluntarily deactivating.
Conversely, the follower numbers for prominent right-wing politicians and personalities have seen huge upticks in the days since the Musk takeover news. NBC News reports that controversial GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene saw her follower count jump 100,000 and far-right Brazilian leader Jair Bolsonaro gained 90,000 followers since Monday.
Aren't Corporations People?
As inflation shot to a new peak in March, cost increases exacted a deep toll on the economy, eating into most Americans’ wages and further imperiling the financially vulnerable. But for many of the US’s largest companies and their shareholders it has been a very different story.
One widely accepted narrative holds that companies and consumers are sharing in inflationary pain, but a Guardian analysis of top corporations’ financials and earnings calls reveals most are enjoying profit increases even as they pass on costs to customers, many of whom are struggling to afford gas, food, clothing, housing and other basics.
The analysis of Securities and Exchange Commission filings for 100 US corporations found net profits up by a median of 49%, and in some individual cases by as much as 111,000%. Those increases came as companies saddled customers with higher prices and all but ten executed massive stock buyback programs or bumped dividends to enrich investors.
In earnings calls, executives detailed how even as demand and profits rose post-vaccine, they passed on most or all inflationary costs to customers via price increases, and some took the opportunity to add more on top. Margins – the share of sales converted into profits – also improved for the majority of the companies analyzed by the Guardian.
Economists who reviewed the data say it’s more evidence of a clear reality: Consumers are taking a financial hit as companies and shareholders profit or are largely shielded.
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Today's Best Person in the World Nominees
Today's Best Kebab Vendor in the World
A photo of a street food vendor working at a smoke-covered oven has won a major food photography award.
Debdatta Chakraborty was named as the overall winner of Pink Lady Food Photographer of the Year 2022 for an image titled Kebabiyana, which was taken in Srinagar, in Indian-administered Kashmir.
The Indian photographer took the picture on a busy street at night, as vendors fired up charcoal ovens to prepare wazwan kebabs and other street food.
I Wanted to Learn About Drunken Orgies When I Was in School
A new law in Florida makes it easier for parents, residents and others to object to books and other materials in school and seek to have them removed. That inspired an atheist in the Sunshine State to send letters to 63 school districts requesting the removal of the Bible.
Chaz Stevens is objecting to the book’s depictions of rape, cannibalism, bestiality and more.
“Is this the message we want to teach our children? If you rape a woman, the father has to give you 50 silver pieces?” he asked in one of the letters cited by Patch Miami.
“As the Bible casually references (i.e. Matthew 15:19) such topics as murder, adultery, sexual immorality and fornication ... do we really want to teach our youth about drunken orgies?” he added.
You Can't See It. You Can't Smell It. You Can't Taste It. You Can't Kill It. Or Can You?
Researchers estimate more than 200 million Americans in all 50 states could have cancer-causing carcinogens in their drinking water. The toxic chemicals per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, called PFAS, have been virtually indestructible — but new technology aims to change that.
PFAS — man-made, practically indestructible chemicals — became widely used for their ability to resist oil and water. They've been found in some firefighting foams, cosmetics and non-stick cookware, among other products. Because the chemicals don't break down in the environment, they can contaminate soil and drinking water sources, where they can accumulate and eventually make their way up the food chain.
At least 2,854 locations in 50 states and two territories are now known to be contaminated with the chemicals, according to the Environmental Working Group.
"The threat is real," said Amy Dindal, PFAS program manager for Battelle, a scientific nonprofit that has developed promising technology to eliminate the problem. Battelle uses a process called supercritical water oxidation to break down the chemical bonds in just seconds.
"'Supercritical water' means that you increase the temperature and increase the pressure and you get it into a special state, where the oxidation will occur more naturally. So in this special state, it breaks the [carbon–fluorine] bond," Dindal told CBS News.
Battelle said it has successfully used the process in its labs to essentially annihilate PFAS in drinking water and has begun partnering with the waste management company Heritage Crystal-Clean for additional testing.
"I absolutely think it's an answer that nobody has had before," Brian Recatto, CEO of Heritage Crystal-Clean, told CBS News. "We're hoping to have a scalable version of the plant within six to eight months."
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Invasions Have Consequences
Is It No Longer PC to Say, "Karma is a Bitch"?
Russia reported a series of explosions in the country's south and an oil depot fire on Wednesday.
An advisor to Ukraine's president said in response: "Karma is a cruel thing."
But he did not say that Ukraine had attacked anywhere in Russia.
An advisor to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called a series of explosions in Russia close to Ukraine's border "karma" for its invasion, but did not say that Ukraine was responsible.
Mykhailo Podolyak, who has represented Ukraine at peace negotiations with Russia, wrote on Telegram on Wednesday, according to a translation by Reuters: "If [Russians] decide to massively attack another country, massively kill everyone there, massively crush peaceful people with tanks, and use warehouses in your regions to enable the killings, then sooner or later the debts will have to be repaid."
"Karma is a cruel thing," he said.
But he did not say that Ukraine was behind the explosions.
Trying to Split NATO?
Poland and Bulgaria have accused Moscow of "blackmail" after the Russian energy giant Gazprom said it had cut off gas exports to the countries.
Poland's deputy foreign minister, Marcin Przydacz, told the BBC that Russia was seeking to "foster divisions" between Western allies.
EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the move showed Russia's "unreliability" as an energy supplier.
The Kremlin insists it is still a reliable energy partner.
Gazprom's move follows Poland and Bulgaria's refusal to pay for gas in roubles.
Last month, Russian President Vladimir Putin decreed that all energy payments must be made in the Russian currency.
The move, which was designed to shore up the faltering currency which has been battered by Western sanctions, has been fiercely resisted by European nations.
This is Great News ... If It Really Happens
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and Russian President Vladimir Putin met one-on-one Tuesday for the first time since Russia invaded Ukraine, and the United Nations said they agreed on arranging evacuations from a besieged steel plant in the battered city of Mariupol.
U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the Russian leader and U.N. chief discussed “proposals for humanitarian assistance and evacuation of civilians from conflict zones, namely in relation to the situation in Mariupol.”
They also agreed in principle, he said, that the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross should be involved in the evacuation of civilians from the Azovstal steel complex where Ukrainian defenders in the southeastern city are making a dogged stand.
Combined Arms
You’ll hear “combined arms” thrown around a lot by war analysts. It’s the ability to combine infantry, armor, artillery, aviation, engineering, and support units to successfully prosecute a war. You’ll see people like me laugh at Russians for throwing unsupported infantry in this attack, then unsupported armor in that other attack. So in a way, this is easy to explain. But really, no one has done a better job of really driving home the explanation than this guy, a British paratrooper,
You can see the whole thread here
There's No Place Like Home. HIS Home.
Multiple reports on Wednesday indicate that Russia appears to be serious about making a move toward Kryvyi Rih. Forces are reportedly being massed west of the Dnipro River to the north of Kherson, and villages in the area — some of them only recently retaken by Ukrainian forces — were shelled over the last day.
Notice that, just in this one small area of the war, Russia is also attempting to push toward Mykolaiv from the south, and toward Zaporizhzhia on the north. This is in addition to the multiple attempts to push from the east. Russia appears to be once again attempting to operate a at least a half dozen advances, all at once, and the one on Kryvyi Rih appears to have no good reason other than the fact that it’s Zelenskyy’s home town.
On the Izyum Front
Meanwhile, in the area of Izyum, Russia also seems to be launching multiple, narrow assaults.
There appear to be genuine Russian gains west of Izyum. Some of it comes from failure to recognize changes that took place in the previous 24 hours. But Russia is currently engaged in an attempt to move west along the road that — assuming they could hold a couple of hundred miles more supply lines — would eventually reach Dnipro. They’re also moving southwest in a route that looks as its designed to cut off the entire oblast by running down to Donetsk. And they’re moving south in a direction that might allow them to surround Kramatorsk. And they’re continuing an attempt to break through the eastern lines at multiple points.
Some intelligence agencies are still reporting that Russia hasn’t launched their “big attack” in the east — but it seems easy to believe that this is it. Just as they’ve done from day one of this invasion, Russia has simply been unable to mass forces and coordinate behind anything that looks like a strong, unified push.
Expect to Hear This From TucKGBer Soon
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I Always Thought a Standard Model Was Around 5' 10" and Weighed Around 120 Pounds
Some bosons, quarks and muons appear not to be behaving as predicted
The standard model of particle physics—completed in 1973—is the jewel in the crown of modern physics. It predicts the properties of elementary particles and forces with mind-boggling accuracy. Take the magnetic moment of the electron, for example, a measure of how strongly a particle wobbles in a magnetic field. The Standard Model gives the correct answer to 14 decimal places, the most accurate prediction in science.
But the Standard Model is not perfect. It cannot explain gravity, dark matter (mysterious stuff detectable only by its gravitational pull), or where all the antimatter in the early universe went. Physicists have spent much time, effort and money performing ever-more elaborate experiments in an effort to see where the Standard Model fails, in the hopes of finding a clue to the theory that will replace it. But the Standard Model has fought back, stubbornly predicting the results of every experiment physicists have thrown its way.
But that may perhaps be changing. In a paper published last week in Science, a team of researchers from the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) in America announced that the mass of an elementary particle called the w boson appears to be greater than the Standard Model predicts. The difference is small—only a hundredth of a percent—but the measurement’s precision exceeds that of all previous experiments combined. It places the odds that the result is spurious at only one in a trillion (“seven sigma”, in the statistical lingo), well above the one in 3.5m (five sigma) that physicists require to consider a finding robust.
The scientists at Fermilab analysed historical data from the Tevatron, a circular particle collider which was the most powerful in the world until the Large Hadron Collider (lhc) came online in 2009. Between 2002 and 2011 (when it ran for the last time), the Tevatron produced approximately 4m w bosons in collisions between particles called quarks and their antimatter counterparts, antiquarks. Using detailed recordings of the scattering trajectories of the menagerie of particles present in such collisions, the scientists could calculate the mass of the w boson with unprecedented accuracy.
The finding has big implications. The w boson is a force-carrying particle. Together with its sibling the z boson, it mediates the weak nuclear force that governs radioactive decay. Unlike other force-carrying particles, however, the w and z bosons have mass—and a lot of it. The w boson is 90 times heavier than a hydrogen atom. The z boson is even more massive. What really distinguishes the w boson, however, is its ability to change the type—or “flavour”—of other elementary particles it comes across. For example, it can transform the electron (and two of its cousins, the muon and tau) into neutrinos. It can also flip quarks from one type to another—up to down, top to bottom, and the whimsically named “strange” quark to a “charm” one.
These protean powers mean that the mass of the w boson is linked to the mass of several other elementary particles. That allows scientists to use the w boson to calculate the mass of those other particles. That is how they predicted the mass of the top quark (discovered in 1995) and the mass of the Higgs boson (discovered in 2012), before either particle had been detected. If the w boson is more massive than the Standard Model predicts, it implies that something else is tugging on it too—an as-yet-undiscovered particle or force. For particle physicists, that is an exciting prospect.
It is not the only one. In March 2021 scientists from cern—Europe’s particle-physics laboratory—reported evidence that the bottom quark decays into electrons and muons in uneven numbers, contradicting the Standard Model. Only three weeks later, Fermilab announced that the magnetic moment of the muon appears to be greater than predicted by the Standard Model too. Like the mass of the w boson, the magnetic moment of the muon is partly determined by the properties of other particles. If it is greater than the Standard Model predicts, that hints at an as-yet-undiscovered particle or force too.
Assuming, that is, the results are real. Exciting as they were, neither result from 2021 crossed the 5-sigma threshold (they hit 3.1 and 4.2 sigma, respectively). That means further confirmation is necessary. The more recent Tevatron result, though, contradicts the previous best measurement of the w boson mass, made in 2017 at the lhc. That was in close agreement with the Standard Model, presenting a puzzle.
On the other hand, the latest Tevatron result aligns well with previous estimates from the Large Electron-Positron Collider, the lhc’s predecessor. It is consequently the strongest evidence yet of the physics that must lie beyond the Standard Model. Anyone who prefers interesting errors over yet more dull confirmation will be hoping it holds up.
Life is Hard When Your Bosons, Quarks and Muons Aren't Behaving Themselves
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Death By TikTok
A Wisconsin couple died from electrocution after attempting a viral art technique in their garage, officials said last week.
The bodies of Tanya Rodriguez, 44, and James Carolfi, 52, were discovered earlier this month in their garage after officers responded to a fire at their house in Marathon County, Wisconsin.
In a statement last Thursday, the Marathon County Sheriff's Office said the couple died prior to the fire in their home while doing a crafting technique called "fractal" or "lichtenburg" wood burning.
"Foul play has been ruled out and the deaths were found to be accidental in nature and are believed to be caused by electrocution from fractal wood burning — a technique in which high-voltage electricity is used to burn lightning or tree-like patterns into wood that has been soaked in a chemical solution," the department said in the statement.
"Through the investigation, it was determined that the fire started in the garage before spreading to the home," the department continued. "We believe that the fractal wood burning equipment that caused the electrocutions likely caused the fire."
The technique — which involves using a high-voltage transformer, often repurposed from a microwave — is employed by woodworkers to decorate various wooden items, including decor items and wooden cutting boards.
Videos of the process have gone viral on social media platforms including TikTok, with #woodturning and #woodburning garnering hundreds of millions of views on the popular video app.
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It's a Busy News Day For Electrocutions
At least 11 people were electrocuted and 15 others injured during a religious procession held by a temple in Tamil Nadu in southern India.
The accident occurred when the temple chariot came in contact with a high-transmission live wire in Thanjavur district, police said.
Two children were among the dead. Officials said the toll could go up as some of the injured were critical.
A case has been lodged and police have opened an investigation.
Fire and rescue services official Bhanupriya, who uses only one name, told BBC Tamil that a generator which was powering the chariot got stuck on a curve in the road. While adjusting it, the top of the chariot came in contact with the high-voltage wire.
Eyewitnesses said the toll could have been much higher if it had not been for a puddle of water on the road - around 50 devotees walking alongside the chariot had stepped aside mere seconds earlier to avoid it.
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I Wonder How Trans People are Treated in Transnistria
Mysterious explosions in Transnistria, a breakaway Russian-controlled territory in Moldova bordering on Ukraine, have raised fears that the Ukraine conflict may be spreading.
Separatist authorities said Ukrainian "infiltrators" were responsible. But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has blamed Russian special services.
Russia says it is concerned. It has about 1,500 troops in Transnistria.
An official has said Russian speakers in Moldova are being oppressed.
This is the same excuse used to justify the invasion of Ukraine.
In the past two days, the Transnistria authorities say, explosions targeted:
Their state security HQ in Tiraspol, the main city
Old Soviet-era radio masts used to broadcast Russian news
A military unit in Parcani, a village just outside Tiraspol
No casualties were reported, but a red "anti-terrorism" alert is now in force, meaning heightened security in the territory, which broke away from Moldova in a brief war in 1992.
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It's The End of Our Lawn As We Know It, And I Feel Fine
Southern California’s gigantic water supplier took the unprecedented step Tuesday of requiring about 6 million people to cut their outdoor watering to one day a week as drought continues to plague the state.
The board of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California declared a water shortage emergency and required the cities and water agencies it supplies to implement the cutback on June 1 and enforce it or face hefty fines.
“We don’t have enough water supplies right now to meet normal demand. The water is not there,” Metropolitan Water District spokesperson Rebecca Kimitch said. “This is unprecedented territory. We’ve never done anything like this before.”
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I've Been Everywhere, Man
Following the record surge in COVID-19 cases during the Omicron-driven wave, some 58% of the U.S. population overall and more than 75% of younger children have been infected with the coronavirus since the start of the pandemic, according to a U.S. nationwide blood survey released on Tuesday.
The study issued by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention marks the first time in which more than half of the U.S. population has been infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus at least once, and offers a detailed view of the impact of the Omicron surge in the United States.
Before Omicron arrived in December of 2021, a third of the U.S. population had evidence of a prior SARS-CoV-2 infection.
Omicron drove up infections in every age group, according to the new data, but children and adolescents, many of whom remain unvaccinated, had the highest rates of infection, while people 65 and older - a heavily vaccinated population - had the lowest.
I've been to
Reno, Chicago, Fargo, Minnesota,
Buffalo, Toronto, Winslow, Sarasota,
Wichita, Tulsa, Ottawa, Oklahoma,
Tampa, Panama, Mattawa, La Paloma,
Bangor, Baltimore, Salvador, Amarillo,
Tocopilla, Barranquilla, and Padilla, I'm a killer.
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New Cases 7-Day Average | Deaths 7-Day Average | New Hospitalizations 7-Day Average | |
| Apr 26 | 48,692 | 299 | |
| Apr 25 | 47,407 | 330 | 1,840 |
| Apr 24 | 44,416 | 314 | 1,779 |
| Apr 23 | 45,413 | 315 | 1,629 |
| Apr 22 | 44,308 | 311 | 1,642 |
| Apr 21 | 40,744 | 346 | 1,647 |
| Apr 20 | 42,604 | 375 | 1,609 |
| Apr 19 | 40,985 | 385 | 1,582 |
| Apr 18 | 37,132 | 380 | 1,564 |
| Apr 17 | 35,212 | 373 | 1,542 |
| Apr 16 | 34,972 | 379 | 1,532 |
| Apr 15 | 34,778 | 399 | 1,510 |
| Apr 14 | 35,475 | 446 | 1,490 |
| Apr 13 | 31,391 | 409 | 1,477 |
| Apr 12 | 29,401 | 452 | 1,463 |
| Apr 11 | 30,208 | 483 | 1.447 |
| Apr 10 | 28,927 | 500 | 1,443 |
| Apr 9 | 28,339 | 509 | |
| Apr 8 | 28,169 | 516 | |
| Apr 7 | 26,286 | 471 | |
| Apr 6 | 26,595 | 496 | |
| Apr 5 | 26,845 | 533 | |
| Apr 4 | 25,537 | 537 | |
| Apr 3 | 25,074 | 572 | |
| Apr 2 | 25,787 | 576 | |
| Apr 1 | 26,106 | 584 | |
| Mar 31 | 25,980 | 605 | |
| Mar 30 | 25,732 | 626 | |
| Mar 29 | 25,218 | 644 | |
| Mar 28 | 26,190 | 700 | |
| Mar 27 | 26,487 | 690 | |
| Mar 26 | 26,593 | 697 | |
| Mar 25 | 26,874 | 705 | |
| Feb 16, 2021 | 78,292 |
| At Least One Dose | Fully Vaccinated | % of Vaccinated W/ Boosters | |
| % of Total Population | 77.5% | 66.0% | 45.6% |
| % of Population 5+ | 82.3% | 70.2% | |
| % of Population 12+ | 87.1% | 74.5% | 47.4% |
| % of Population 18+ | 88.9% | 76.0% | 49.1% |
| % of Population 65+ | 95.0% | 90.0% | 68.3% |
California Precipitation (Updated Tuesday April 19)
We had some rain up north this week.
| Percent of Average for this Date | Last Week | |
| Northern Sierra Precipitation | 79% (70%) | 73% (63% of full season average) |
| San Joaquin Precipitation | 65% (58%) | 65% (57%) |
| Tulare Basin Precipitation | 60% (54%) | 61% (53%) |
| Snow Water Content - North | 29% | 15% |
| Snow Water Content - Central | 33% | 27% |
| Snow Water Content - South | 23% | 24% |
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I Tried to Grab the Fog. I Mist.
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Today's Worst Person in the World Nominees
Like My Mom Always Said, "Chew Your Companies Before Swallowing".
Tesla shares have fallen after investor concerns that boss Elon Musk may have to sell shares in the electric car maker to help pay for the takeover of Twitter.
Tesla had more than $125bn (£99.3bn) wiped off its market value on Tuesday.
One analyst said the slump in Tesla's value may pose problems for a $12.5bn loan Mr Musk has secured against his stake in the company.
The issues highlight the challenges he faces as he tries to run five firms.
Tesla's share price has taken a hammering, with some investors wondering whether Mr Musk's Twitter purchase is bad for Tesla.
Shares dropped 12.2% from just over $1tn to $906bn.
Some are now asking whether Elon Musk, by trying to buy Twitter, may have bitten off more than he can chew.
Isn't This the Same Bank That Kept Previous Guy Afloat With Shady Loans?
Deutsche Bank raised eyebrows earlier this month by becoming the first major bank to forecast a US recession, albeit a "mild" one.
Now, it's warning of a deeper downturn caused by the Federal Reserve's quest to knock down stubbornly high inflation.
"We will get a major recession," Deutsche Bank economists wrote in a report to clients on Tuesday.
The problem, according to the bank, is that while inflation may be peaking, it will take a "long time" before it gets back down to the Fed's goal of 2%. That suggests the central bank will raise interest rates so aggressively that it hurts the economy.
The Clock is Ticking. Then End is Nigh.
Lawyers for the New York State Attorney General's Office said they are nearly finished with their civil investigation into the Trump Organization, after taking steps to unravel the real estate company's assets that they described as being as complex as a "Russian nesting doll."
They still want to search two cell phones belonging to former President Donald Trump and the laptop and desktop of his longtime executive assistant Rhona Graff, but investigators told a judge this week they're moving quickly.
"The process is near the end," Kevin Wallace, senior enforcement counsel at the New York State Attorney General's Office, said Monday.
A third-party firm hired to search the Trump Organization's files had identified 151 custodians, or people or entities, that might have documents sought by the attorney general's office, but Wallace said they are focusing on the "most important outstanding pieces of information" because the clock is ticking for it to file a lawsuit.
The statute of limitations for various laws under consideration goes back several years, but the tolling agreement with the Trump Organization that paused the clock expires on Saturday. Even as the agreement expires, it could still be several weeks before the attorney general's office decides its next step in the investigation.
Another Perry Could Be Saying, "Oops!"
Newly obtained text messages and recent court filings fill in significant gaps about the key role a little-known Pennsylvania Republican congressman played at almost every turn in scheming to reverse or delay certification of the 2020 election.
The texts, which were among those selectively provided by Donald Trump's former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to the House select committee, show Rep. Scott Perry pushing to have the nation's top intelligence official investigate baseless conspiracy theories and working to replace the US acting attorney general with an acolyte willing to do Trump's bidding.
"From an Intel friend: DNI needs to task NSA to immediately seize and begin looking for international comms related to Dominion," Perry wrote to Meadows on November 12, just five days after the election was called for Joe Biden.
In the text, which has not been previously reported, Perry appears to be urging Meadows to get John Ratcliffe, then-Director of National Intelligence, to order the National Security Agency to investigate debunked claims that Dominion voting machines were hacked by China.
Perry, a five-term congressman, is a retired Brigadier General with nearly 40 years of military service, including flying combat missions in Iraq. Given his extensive background, he is likely familiar with the inner-workings of government intelligence.
You May Be on January 6 Overload, But a Lot Has Happened in the Past 72 Hours
CNN: Here's everything you need to know, and what to watch for next.
The Senators Represent Themselves, the Liquor, and Tobacco Interests. They Don't Represent the Voters.
Most Senators Still Oppose Doing A Hugely Popular Thing: Legalizing Marijuana
The federal government is strikingly out of step with public opinion on cannabis.
Even though a supermajority of Americans say marijuana should be legal for adults and the House has passed a bill to legalize it, major cannabis reform remains unlikely this year.
Why? Because Republicans and a few Democratic senators don’t want to do it.
Earlier this month, the House passed a bill that would legalize weed at the federal level, expunge cannabis-related criminal records and set the stage for a nationwide legal marijuana industry. But that bill is almost certainly dead on arrival in the Senate.
Instead, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) have been trying to build consensus for a Senate version of cannabis reform.
The trio collaborated on a discussion draft last year that, like the House bill, would have legalized marijuana by removing it from the list of drugs banned under the Controlled Substances Act, which lists “marihuana” in the same category as heroin. The bill would also have expunged nonviolent federal criminal records and allowed marijuana businesses greater access to financial services.
Schumer has said he intends to introduce the new version of the bill sometime before the August recess. It’s an open question whether it’ll get a vote.
The problem for Schumer is the math. Democrats control 50 seats in the 100-member Senate, and they would need 60 votes to move a cannabis bill, meaning at least 10 Republicans would need to come aboard, and possibly more, since several Democratic senators seem like they’re not ready to legalize weed.
“I’m not where many people in my party are,” Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) told HuffPost. The senator, whose state voted to legalize marijuana in 2020, expressed concern with implementation of a cannabis legalization on the national level.
“Are we set up to keep it out of the hands of young people? What’s the law going to be? Can anybody smoke it? There’s a lot of ifs and buts there,” Tester said. (Based on that "logic", alcohol and tobacco should be illegal.)
SThe illegality of marijuana at the federal level is strikingly out of step with popular opinion. A poll this month found that 69% of Americans favor full legalization, and that’s a typical survey finding. Support for legal weed has grown in recent years as most states have legalized the drug for medicinal use, with 18 states greenlighting cannabis for recreational use.
Firing Squad? No Lethal Injection? These Folks LOVE Guns.
Oklahoma GOP Chair John Bennett, who is running for Congress, said he wants to put Dr. Anthony Fauci in front of a firing squad ― and the crowd at a campaign event clapped and cheered.
“We’re fighting communist Democrats, establishment RINOs!” Bennett ranted in a video that Right Wing Watch shared online Tuesday, which has now gone viral.
“We’re fighting against a system that stole the election in 2020 and nobody had been held accountable,” Bennett continued, parroting former President Donald Trump’s baseless election fraud claims. “We’re in a war with bureaucrats that have forced vaccine mandates on us, mask mandates on us.”
Bennett then railed against something he described as “wokeness confusion,” which he alleged is being pushed “down our throats now.”
Then came his sinister line about Fauci, who has been targeted by repeated death threats for his public health work during the coronavirus pandemic.
“And by the way, we should try Anthony Fauci and put him in front of a firing squad,” said Bennett, not really expanding on what crime he believes Fauci has committed.
Speaking of Gun-Loving QOP Wackos, This One Should Be on the No-Fly List
Madison Cawthorn, a Republican congressman from North Carolina, was caught trying to go through security with a loaded gun at Charlotte Douglas International Airport Tuesday morning, according to multiple sources.
This was the second time the controversial congressman has been stopped trying to bring a weapon through airport security.
TSA officers spotted the gun at the checkpoint and called airport police.
Cawthorn was issued a citation for possession of a dangerous weapon on city property by Charlotte Mecklenburg police.
He was later released, and the CMPD took possession of the firearm, which is normal procedure, police said.
Is TucKGBer Aiding and Abetting? Maybe He Needs To Be In Front of a Firing Squad.
Frank Figliuzzi, the FBI’s former assistant director for counterintelligence, this week torched Tucker Carlson for pushing pro-Russian talking points on his prime time Fox News show.
Figliuzzi, during an appearance on the Really American PAC’s “Talking Heads” show, said Carlson’s on-air parroting of Kremlin propaganda before and during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has “gone way beyond free speech.”
Most recently, Carlson suggested that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy should be audited before the U.S. sends more aid to the country.
“I took an oath of office when I became an FBI agent to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution,” said Figliuzzi. “That means I was willing to risk my life for somebody like Tucker Carlson’s right to free speech.”
But Putin is committing war crimes and terrorism in Ukraine, and “those who aid and abet him are aiding and abetting terrorism,” he continued.
And with clips of Carlson’s comments being broadcast by Russia’s state media, Figliuzzi said “you’ve got to stop and say, wait a minute, this isn’t free speech anymore. This is now being our own people deliberately being used by an enemy against us.”
Texas Used to Be Part of Mexico. Does That Give Mexico the Right to Take It Back?
He Could Be #3
"Positioned to be third in line to the presidency nine months from now as speaker of the House, McCarthy will lead a conference of radicals, nihilists, and some people who likely committed federal crimes. Shouldn’t Democrats be talking about this?"
Add This to the List of Things She Doesn't Know
Sticking with Troth Senchal
At a rally in Ohio on Saturday, Trump touted his network. Sort of.
“Because of this digital tyranny we had to give the American people their voice back by building something called troth, truth, senchal, Truth Social,” Trump said.
The slip-up had “The Daily Show” host Trevor Noah in stitches Tuesday night.
“You had one job, one job!” he cracked. “It’s your social media platform and you messed up the name? It’s almost like every time Trump speaks, his own mouth stages an insurrection.”
I'm Not Cancelling Anyone I Follow on Twitter. I Don't Follow Anyone. Not Even Taylor Swift.
Twitter saw mass “organic” deactivations and huge fluctuations in follower numbers for some of the platform’s highest-profile users in the days after Elon Musk agreed to a $44 billion takeover deal of the social media giant.
According to an NBC News report published Tuesday, the follower numbers for some of Twitter’s most-followed accounts, including former President Barack Obama, singers Katy Perry and Taylor Swift all dropped by hundreds of thousands. Obama, who is Twitter’s most-followed user with 131.7 million followers, saw his follower count fall by 300,000 since Monday. Perry, who has 108.8 million followers, lost 200,000.
Twitter routinely purges the platform of bots and fake accounts which can lead to follower counts dropping but the company confirmed to NBC News that the recent drops were “organic” and not automated or deletion of bots, meaning hundreds of thousands of users accounts are voluntarily deactivating.
Conversely, the follower numbers for prominent right-wing politicians and personalities have seen huge upticks in the days since the Musk takeover news. NBC News reports that controversial GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene saw her follower count jump 100,000 and far-right Brazilian leader Jair Bolsonaro gained 90,000 followers since Monday.
Aren't Corporations People?
As inflation shot to a new peak in March, cost increases exacted a deep toll on the economy, eating into most Americans’ wages and further imperiling the financially vulnerable. But for many of the US’s largest companies and their shareholders it has been a very different story.
One widely accepted narrative holds that companies and consumers are sharing in inflationary pain, but a Guardian analysis of top corporations’ financials and earnings calls reveals most are enjoying profit increases even as they pass on costs to customers, many of whom are struggling to afford gas, food, clothing, housing and other basics.
The analysis of Securities and Exchange Commission filings for 100 US corporations found net profits up by a median of 49%, and in some individual cases by as much as 111,000%. Those increases came as companies saddled customers with higher prices and all but ten executed massive stock buyback programs or bumped dividends to enrich investors.
In earnings calls, executives detailed how even as demand and profits rose post-vaccine, they passed on most or all inflationary costs to customers via price increases, and some took the opportunity to add more on top. Margins – the share of sales converted into profits – also improved for the majority of the companies analyzed by the Guardian.
Economists who reviewed the data say it’s more evidence of a clear reality: Consumers are taking a financial hit as companies and shareholders profit or are largely shielded.
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Today's Best Person in the World Nominees
Today's Best Kebab Vendor in the World
A photo of a street food vendor working at a smoke-covered oven has won a major food photography award.
Debdatta Chakraborty was named as the overall winner of Pink Lady Food Photographer of the Year 2022 for an image titled Kebabiyana, which was taken in Srinagar, in Indian-administered Kashmir.
The Indian photographer took the picture on a busy street at night, as vendors fired up charcoal ovens to prepare wazwan kebabs and other street food.
I Wanted to Learn About Drunken Orgies When I Was in School
A new law in Florida makes it easier for parents, residents and others to object to books and other materials in school and seek to have them removed. That inspired an atheist in the Sunshine State to send letters to 63 school districts requesting the removal of the Bible.
Chaz Stevens is objecting to the book’s depictions of rape, cannibalism, bestiality and more.
“Is this the message we want to teach our children? If you rape a woman, the father has to give you 50 silver pieces?” he asked in one of the letters cited by Patch Miami.
“As the Bible casually references (i.e. Matthew 15:19) such topics as murder, adultery, sexual immorality and fornication ... do we really want to teach our youth about drunken orgies?” he added.
You Can't See It. You Can't Smell It. You Can't Taste It. You Can't Kill It. Or Can You?
Researchers estimate more than 200 million Americans in all 50 states could have cancer-causing carcinogens in their drinking water. The toxic chemicals per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, called PFAS, have been virtually indestructible — but new technology aims to change that.
PFAS — man-made, practically indestructible chemicals — became widely used for their ability to resist oil and water. They've been found in some firefighting foams, cosmetics and non-stick cookware, among other products. Because the chemicals don't break down in the environment, they can contaminate soil and drinking water sources, where they can accumulate and eventually make their way up the food chain.
At least 2,854 locations in 50 states and two territories are now known to be contaminated with the chemicals, according to the Environmental Working Group.
"The threat is real," said Amy Dindal, PFAS program manager for Battelle, a scientific nonprofit that has developed promising technology to eliminate the problem. Battelle uses a process called supercritical water oxidation to break down the chemical bonds in just seconds.
"'Supercritical water' means that you increase the temperature and increase the pressure and you get it into a special state, where the oxidation will occur more naturally. So in this special state, it breaks the [carbon–fluorine] bond," Dindal told CBS News.
Battelle said it has successfully used the process in its labs to essentially annihilate PFAS in drinking water and has begun partnering with the waste management company Heritage Crystal-Clean for additional testing.
"I absolutely think it's an answer that nobody has had before," Brian Recatto, CEO of Heritage Crystal-Clean, told CBS News. "We're hoping to have a scalable version of the plant within six to eight months."
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Invasions Have Consequences
Is It No Longer PC to Say, "Karma is a Bitch"?
Russia reported a series of explosions in the country's south and an oil depot fire on Wednesday.
An advisor to Ukraine's president said in response: "Karma is a cruel thing."
But he did not say that Ukraine had attacked anywhere in Russia.
An advisor to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called a series of explosions in Russia close to Ukraine's border "karma" for its invasion, but did not say that Ukraine was responsible.
Mykhailo Podolyak, who has represented Ukraine at peace negotiations with Russia, wrote on Telegram on Wednesday, according to a translation by Reuters: "If [Russians] decide to massively attack another country, massively kill everyone there, massively crush peaceful people with tanks, and use warehouses in your regions to enable the killings, then sooner or later the debts will have to be repaid."
"Karma is a cruel thing," he said.
But he did not say that Ukraine was behind the explosions.
Trying to Split NATO?
Poland and Bulgaria have accused Moscow of "blackmail" after the Russian energy giant Gazprom said it had cut off gas exports to the countries.
Poland's deputy foreign minister, Marcin Przydacz, told the BBC that Russia was seeking to "foster divisions" between Western allies.
EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the move showed Russia's "unreliability" as an energy supplier.
The Kremlin insists it is still a reliable energy partner.
Gazprom's move follows Poland and Bulgaria's refusal to pay for gas in roubles.
Last month, Russian President Vladimir Putin decreed that all energy payments must be made in the Russian currency.
The move, which was designed to shore up the faltering currency which has been battered by Western sanctions, has been fiercely resisted by European nations.
This is Great News ... If It Really Happens
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and Russian President Vladimir Putin met one-on-one Tuesday for the first time since Russia invaded Ukraine, and the United Nations said they agreed on arranging evacuations from a besieged steel plant in the battered city of Mariupol.
U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the Russian leader and U.N. chief discussed “proposals for humanitarian assistance and evacuation of civilians from conflict zones, namely in relation to the situation in Mariupol.”
They also agreed in principle, he said, that the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross should be involved in the evacuation of civilians from the Azovstal steel complex where Ukrainian defenders in the southeastern city are making a dogged stand.
Combined Arms
You’ll hear “combined arms” thrown around a lot by war analysts. It’s the ability to combine infantry, armor, artillery, aviation, engineering, and support units to successfully prosecute a war. You’ll see people like me laugh at Russians for throwing unsupported infantry in this attack, then unsupported armor in that other attack. So in a way, this is easy to explain. But really, no one has done a better job of really driving home the explanation than this guy, a British paratrooper,
You can see the whole thread here
There's No Place Like Home. HIS Home.
Multiple reports on Wednesday indicate that Russia appears to be serious about making a move toward Kryvyi Rih. Forces are reportedly being massed west of the Dnipro River to the north of Kherson, and villages in the area — some of them only recently retaken by Ukrainian forces — were shelled over the last day.
Notice that, just in this one small area of the war, Russia is also attempting to push toward Mykolaiv from the south, and toward Zaporizhzhia on the north. This is in addition to the multiple attempts to push from the east. Russia appears to be once again attempting to operate a at least a half dozen advances, all at once, and the one on Kryvyi Rih appears to have no good reason other than the fact that it’s Zelenskyy’s home town.
On the Izyum Front
Meanwhile, in the area of Izyum, Russia also seems to be launching multiple, narrow assaults.
There appear to be genuine Russian gains west of Izyum. Some of it comes from failure to recognize changes that took place in the previous 24 hours. But Russia is currently engaged in an attempt to move west along the road that — assuming they could hold a couple of hundred miles more supply lines — would eventually reach Dnipro. They’re also moving southwest in a route that looks as its designed to cut off the entire oblast by running down to Donetsk. And they’re moving south in a direction that might allow them to surround Kramatorsk. And they’re continuing an attempt to break through the eastern lines at multiple points.
Some intelligence agencies are still reporting that Russia hasn’t launched their “big attack” in the east — but it seems easy to believe that this is it. Just as they’ve done from day one of this invasion, Russia has simply been unable to mass forces and coordinate behind anything that looks like a strong, unified push.
Expect to Hear This From TucKGBer Soon
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I Always Thought a Standard Model Was Around 5' 10" and Weighed Around 120 Pounds
Some bosons, quarks and muons appear not to be behaving as predicted
The standard model of particle physics—completed in 1973—is the jewel in the crown of modern physics. It predicts the properties of elementary particles and forces with mind-boggling accuracy. Take the magnetic moment of the electron, for example, a measure of how strongly a particle wobbles in a magnetic field. The Standard Model gives the correct answer to 14 decimal places, the most accurate prediction in science.
But the Standard Model is not perfect. It cannot explain gravity, dark matter (mysterious stuff detectable only by its gravitational pull), or where all the antimatter in the early universe went. Physicists have spent much time, effort and money performing ever-more elaborate experiments in an effort to see where the Standard Model fails, in the hopes of finding a clue to the theory that will replace it. But the Standard Model has fought back, stubbornly predicting the results of every experiment physicists have thrown its way.
But that may perhaps be changing. In a paper published last week in Science, a team of researchers from the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) in America announced that the mass of an elementary particle called the w boson appears to be greater than the Standard Model predicts. The difference is small—only a hundredth of a percent—but the measurement’s precision exceeds that of all previous experiments combined. It places the odds that the result is spurious at only one in a trillion (“seven sigma”, in the statistical lingo), well above the one in 3.5m (five sigma) that physicists require to consider a finding robust.
The scientists at Fermilab analysed historical data from the Tevatron, a circular particle collider which was the most powerful in the world until the Large Hadron Collider (lhc) came online in 2009. Between 2002 and 2011 (when it ran for the last time), the Tevatron produced approximately 4m w bosons in collisions between particles called quarks and their antimatter counterparts, antiquarks. Using detailed recordings of the scattering trajectories of the menagerie of particles present in such collisions, the scientists could calculate the mass of the w boson with unprecedented accuracy.
The finding has big implications. The w boson is a force-carrying particle. Together with its sibling the z boson, it mediates the weak nuclear force that governs radioactive decay. Unlike other force-carrying particles, however, the w and z bosons have mass—and a lot of it. The w boson is 90 times heavier than a hydrogen atom. The z boson is even more massive. What really distinguishes the w boson, however, is its ability to change the type—or “flavour”—of other elementary particles it comes across. For example, it can transform the electron (and two of its cousins, the muon and tau) into neutrinos. It can also flip quarks from one type to another—up to down, top to bottom, and the whimsically named “strange” quark to a “charm” one.
These protean powers mean that the mass of the w boson is linked to the mass of several other elementary particles. That allows scientists to use the w boson to calculate the mass of those other particles. That is how they predicted the mass of the top quark (discovered in 1995) and the mass of the Higgs boson (discovered in 2012), before either particle had been detected. If the w boson is more massive than the Standard Model predicts, it implies that something else is tugging on it too—an as-yet-undiscovered particle or force. For particle physicists, that is an exciting prospect.
It is not the only one. In March 2021 scientists from cern—Europe’s particle-physics laboratory—reported evidence that the bottom quark decays into electrons and muons in uneven numbers, contradicting the Standard Model. Only three weeks later, Fermilab announced that the magnetic moment of the muon appears to be greater than predicted by the Standard Model too. Like the mass of the w boson, the magnetic moment of the muon is partly determined by the properties of other particles. If it is greater than the Standard Model predicts, that hints at an as-yet-undiscovered particle or force too.
Assuming, that is, the results are real. Exciting as they were, neither result from 2021 crossed the 5-sigma threshold (they hit 3.1 and 4.2 sigma, respectively). That means further confirmation is necessary. The more recent Tevatron result, though, contradicts the previous best measurement of the w boson mass, made in 2017 at the lhc. That was in close agreement with the Standard Model, presenting a puzzle.
On the other hand, the latest Tevatron result aligns well with previous estimates from the Large Electron-Positron Collider, the lhc’s predecessor. It is consequently the strongest evidence yet of the physics that must lie beyond the Standard Model. Anyone who prefers interesting errors over yet more dull confirmation will be hoping it holds up.
Life is Hard When Your Bosons, Quarks and Muons Aren't Behaving Themselves
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Death By TikTok
A Wisconsin couple died from electrocution after attempting a viral art technique in their garage, officials said last week.
The bodies of Tanya Rodriguez, 44, and James Carolfi, 52, were discovered earlier this month in their garage after officers responded to a fire at their house in Marathon County, Wisconsin.
In a statement last Thursday, the Marathon County Sheriff's Office said the couple died prior to the fire in their home while doing a crafting technique called "fractal" or "lichtenburg" wood burning.
"Foul play has been ruled out and the deaths were found to be accidental in nature and are believed to be caused by electrocution from fractal wood burning — a technique in which high-voltage electricity is used to burn lightning or tree-like patterns into wood that has been soaked in a chemical solution," the department said in the statement.
"Through the investigation, it was determined that the fire started in the garage before spreading to the home," the department continued. "We believe that the fractal wood burning equipment that caused the electrocutions likely caused the fire."
The technique — which involves using a high-voltage transformer, often repurposed from a microwave — is employed by woodworkers to decorate various wooden items, including decor items and wooden cutting boards.
Videos of the process have gone viral on social media platforms including TikTok, with #woodturning and #woodburning garnering hundreds of millions of views on the popular video app.
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It's a Busy News Day For Electrocutions
At least 11 people were electrocuted and 15 others injured during a religious procession held by a temple in Tamil Nadu in southern India.
The accident occurred when the temple chariot came in contact with a high-transmission live wire in Thanjavur district, police said.
Two children were among the dead. Officials said the toll could go up as some of the injured were critical.
A case has been lodged and police have opened an investigation.
Fire and rescue services official Bhanupriya, who uses only one name, told BBC Tamil that a generator which was powering the chariot got stuck on a curve in the road. While adjusting it, the top of the chariot came in contact with the high-voltage wire.
Eyewitnesses said the toll could have been much higher if it had not been for a puddle of water on the road - around 50 devotees walking alongside the chariot had stepped aside mere seconds earlier to avoid it.
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I Wonder How Trans People are Treated in Transnistria
Mysterious explosions in Transnistria, a breakaway Russian-controlled territory in Moldova bordering on Ukraine, have raised fears that the Ukraine conflict may be spreading.
Separatist authorities said Ukrainian "infiltrators" were responsible. But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has blamed Russian special services.
Russia says it is concerned. It has about 1,500 troops in Transnistria.
An official has said Russian speakers in Moldova are being oppressed.
This is the same excuse used to justify the invasion of Ukraine.
In the past two days, the Transnistria authorities say, explosions targeted:
Their state security HQ in Tiraspol, the main city
Old Soviet-era radio masts used to broadcast Russian news
A military unit in Parcani, a village just outside Tiraspol
No casualties were reported, but a red "anti-terrorism" alert is now in force, meaning heightened security in the territory, which broke away from Moldova in a brief war in 1992.
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It's The End of Our Lawn As We Know It, And I Feel Fine
Southern California’s gigantic water supplier took the unprecedented step Tuesday of requiring about 6 million people to cut their outdoor watering to one day a week as drought continues to plague the state.
The board of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California declared a water shortage emergency and required the cities and water agencies it supplies to implement the cutback on June 1 and enforce it or face hefty fines.
“We don’t have enough water supplies right now to meet normal demand. The water is not there,” Metropolitan Water District spokesperson Rebecca Kimitch said. “This is unprecedented territory. We’ve never done anything like this before.”
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I've Been Everywhere, Man
Following the record surge in COVID-19 cases during the Omicron-driven wave, some 58% of the U.S. population overall and more than 75% of younger children have been infected with the coronavirus since the start of the pandemic, according to a U.S. nationwide blood survey released on Tuesday.
The study issued by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention marks the first time in which more than half of the U.S. population has been infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus at least once, and offers a detailed view of the impact of the Omicron surge in the United States.
Before Omicron arrived in December of 2021, a third of the U.S. population had evidence of a prior SARS-CoV-2 infection.
Omicron drove up infections in every age group, according to the new data, but children and adolescents, many of whom remain unvaccinated, had the highest rates of infection, while people 65 and older - a heavily vaccinated population - had the lowest.
I've been to
Reno, Chicago, Fargo, Minnesota,
Buffalo, Toronto, Winslow, Sarasota,
Wichita, Tulsa, Ottawa, Oklahoma,
Tampa, Panama, Mattawa, La Paloma,
Bangor, Baltimore, Salvador, Amarillo,
Tocopilla, Barranquilla, and Padilla, I'm a killer.
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