Post by mhbruin on May 12, 2022 9:11:03 GMT -8
US Vaccine Data - We Have Now Administered 580 Million Shots (Population 333 Million)
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California Precipitation (Updated Tuesday May 10)
We had some rain up north this week.
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My New Stair Lift Is Just Driving Me Up the Wall.
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Today's Worst Person in the World Nominees
Murder, Most Foul
When Leonid Pliats and his boss were shot in the back by Russian soldiers, the killing was captured on CCTV cameras in clear and terrible detail. The footage, which was obtained by the BBC, is now being investigated by Ukrainian prosecutors as a suspected war crime.
It was the height of the fighting around Kyiv and the main roads into the capital were a battlefield, including around the bicycle shop where Leonid worked as a security guard.
But this was no firefight: the video clearly shows heavily armed Russian soldiers shooting the two unarmed Ukrainians and then looting the business.
We have pieced together the full sequence of events, matching what was recorded on multiple CCTV cameras around the site with the testimony of people Leonid phoned that day, as well as the Ukrainian volunteer fighters who tried to rescue him.
They Are Suing For More Screwing. Are They Republicans? Forcing a Woman to Have an Unwanted Baby?
An Indian couple is taking their son to court, demanding that he and his wife either produce a grandchild within a year or cough up almost $650,000.
Sanjeev and Sadhana Prasad say they exhausted their savings by raising and educating their pilot son and paying for a lavish wedding.
Now they want payback.
“My son has been married for six years but they are still not planning a baby. At least if we have a grandchild to spend time with, our pain will become bearable,” the couple said in their petition filed with a court in the north Indian town of Haridwar last week.
The compensation they are demanding is 50 million rupees ($650,000), which includes the cost of a wedding reception in a five-star hotel, a luxury car worth $80,000 and paying for the couple’s honeymoon abroad, the Times of India reported on Thursday.
The parents also forked out $65,000 to get their son trained as a pilot in the United States, only for him to return to India unemployed, the paper said.
“We also had to take a loan to build our house and now we are going through a lot of financial hardships. Mentally too we are quite disturbed because we are living alone,” the couple said in their petition.
The couple’s lawyer Arvind Kumar said the petition will be taken up for hearing by the court in northern India on May 17.
How Do You Burn a Digital Book?
E-reader apps that became a lifeline for students during the pandemic are now in the crossfire of a culture war raging over books in schools and public libraries.
In several states, apps and the companies that run them have been targeted by conservative parents who have pushed schools and public libraries to shut down their digital programs, which let users download and read books on their smartphones, tablets or laptops.
Some parents want the apps banned for their children, or even for all students. And they’re getting results.
A school superintendent in a suburb of Nashville, Tennessee, pulled his system’s e-reader offline for a week last month, cutting access for 40,000 students, after a parent searched the Epic library available on her kindergartener’s laptop and found books supporting gay pride.
In a rural county northwest of Austin, Texas, county officials cut off access to the OverDrive digital library that local residents had used for a decade to find books to read for pleasure, prompting a federal lawsuit against the county.
And on the east coast of Florida, the Brevard County school system removed the Epic app from its computer system, saying it didn’t want kids to have access to material that their own school librarians had not vetted.
Lufthansa Acts Like They Have Air for Brains
German airline Lufthansa has apologized for refusing to let any members of a large group of Orthodox Jewish passengers onto a flight after some of them had refused to wear masks.
In a statement late Tuesday, Lufthansa said that it “regrets the circumstances surrounding the decision to exclude the affected passengers from the flight, for which Lufthansa sincerely apologizes.”
The airline said it was reviewing what had happened during the incident on May 4, involving passengers from New York transiting in Frankfurt for a flight to Budapest.
Some of the passengers had allegedly refused to comply with rules requiring them to wear face masks, whereupon Lufthansa staff allegedly blocked all passengers who were visibly identifiable as Jews from boarding their connecting flight, German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported.
Local German media reported that the staff excluded those passengers who were recognizable as Jews because they were wearing skull caps or had sidelocks.
“We regret that the large group was denied boarding rather than limiting it to the non-compliant guests,” the airline said.
“We have zero tolerance for racism, antisemitism and discrimination of any type,” it added.
What is the Evangelical Version of Sharia Law?
...On the topic of abortion in particular, sharia is by far more flexible and willing to look into the context on a case-by-case basis before a final ruling, and there are no punishments threatening the woman. Sharia law remains a synonym for extremism, despite Muslims explaining for more than two decades that it is not that simple. The ease with which Islam becomes a reference point for all that is inherently backward each time conservatives in America inflict another regression of civil liberties is telling, even when the intentions are not to “otherize” Muslims.
When people of Muslim majority countries learn about Evangelicals and conservative lawmakers, other comparisons are made. “They are like our Islamist parties,” for example, in that once they obtain power using democratic and legal means mostly, their first targets are often women and minorities.
A few years back I coined the name “Asaeb Ahl Al-Hick” for white nationalist militias, a play on the infamous, ultra-fanatic, Iraqi state-sponsored militia Asaeb Ahl Al Haq. The difference is Muslims find the similarities as evidence that all faiths, beliefs and ideologies carry fundamental, extreme ideals, and there are followers who strive to make those ideals a reality and fact for others. It is proof we are far more alike than our supposed differences.
Our Laws Take Into Account the Wishes of the Female Sea Turtle
Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) attracted ridicule this week after he compared women and fetuses to sea turtles, eagles and their eggs as he argued against a bill proposed by Democrats that would guarantee the right to abortion under federal law.
According to Daines’ analogy, which was delivered on the Senate floor complete with a visual aid, the legislation would give fetuses fewer protections than turtle and eagle eggs.
“If you were to take or destroy the eggs of a sea turtle, now I said the eggs. Not the hatchlings, that’s also a [unintelligible], the criminal penalties are severe. Up to $100,000 fine and a year in prison. Now why?” Daines said. “Why do we have laws in place that protect the eggs of a sea turtle or the eggs of eagles? Because when you destroy an egg, you’re killing a preborn baby sea turtle or a preborn baby eagle.”
This Stinks Worse Than Horse Manure
Eric Reed, the trainer of Kentucky Derby long shot winner Rich Strike, appeared to sidestep ESPN’s questions on Wednesday about a demeaning tweet he allegedly wrote about Vice President Kamala Harris.
Reed has been accused of making a sexist slur in a Twitter response to former Trump adviser Sebastian Gorka, the New York Post reported.
Gorka asked on social media in January, “So what exactly are Kamala’s qualifications?” To which an account that appears linked to Reed replied: “Heard she’s good on her knees!!”
Your Wife Or Daughter Might Be Committing Murder in a Month or Two
With trigger laws in 13 states poised to go into effect if the Supreme Court strikes down Roe v. Wade, a new era of restricted access to birth control could unfold in states that narrowly define when life begins, legal experts say.
“This is the new Jane Crow that we’re about to enter,” said Michele Goodwin, a chancellor’s professor of law at the University of California, Irvine, and the author of “Policing the Womb: Invisible Women and the Criminalization of Motherhood.”
“It’s no longer a hypothetical — the reality is already here,” Goodwin said, pointing to states that are considering legislation to limit which kinds of birth control residents can acquire, like Louisiana and Idaho.
Some conservative lawmakers wasted no time signaling they were looking into restricting or banning certain types of emergency contraception, such as Plan B and other morning-after pills that can be used within 72 hours of intercourse to prevent pregnancy.
A leading Republican state legislator in Idaho suggested last week that he would be open to holding hearings on banning emergency birth control, and Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., recently denounced Griswold v. Connecticut, the 1965 case that expanded access to contraception to unmarried people.
In Louisiana, legislation would classify abortion as a homicide and define “personhood” as beginning from the moment of fertilization. Contraception methods like Plan B and certain types of intrauterine devices, or IUDs, could be restricted under the bill, said Cathren Cohen, a scholar of law and policy at the UCLA Law Center.
“Anything that would prevent a fertilized egg from turning into a pregnancy and being born into a baby could be considered a homicide,” she said. “If you define a pregnancy and you define a person as including just this fertilized egg, then technically you are legislating that an IUD can cause an abortion.”
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Today's Best Person in the World Nominees
Should You Stop to Put Your Shoe Back on in a 200-Meter Race?
Originalism Sucks! "The Regime Of Their Barber's Ancestors"
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Invasions Have Consequences
Day 78
Fighting
Ukrainian forces are keeping up a counterattack to the north of the second largest city of Kharkiv and recapturing several towns and villages towards the Russian border, the British defence ministry said.
Ukrainian officials issued dire warnings about the fate of civilians and the last fighters in the southern port of Mariupol, after weeks of Russian bombardment which the city’s mayor said had turned it into a “medieval ghetto”.
Ukraine’s army said 788 cruise and ballistic missiles have been launched on targets in Ukraine from the territories of Russia and Belarus since the start of the invasion.
In Zaporizhzhia, in the country’s south, locals reported a Russian unit shot up 20 of its vehicles to avoid combat duty.
Political and human impact
The Russian-occupied region of Kherson in Ukraine plans to ask Russian President Putin to incorporate it into Russia, TASS news agency said, citing a Russian official. The deposed governor said the region’s people want to return to being part of Ukraine.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he is deeply concerned about hunger becoming widespread as the war in Ukraine threatens food security in different parts of the world.
Kyiv’s top prosecutor has announced that Ukraine will launch its first war crimes trial over Moscow’s ongoing invasion, bringing a 21-year-old Russian soldier to the stand.
Energy and sanctions
Russian gas flows to Europe via Ukraine fell by a quarter after Ukrainian forces halted the use of the Sokhranovka transit route.
Moscow has slapped sanctions on the owner of the Polish part of the Yamal pipeline that brings Russian gas to Europe, as well as the former German unit of Russian gas producer Gazprom, whose subsidiaries service Europe.
Germany is examining the Russian announcement of sanctions on parts of Gazprom Germania, an economy ministry spokesperson said.
Japan will ramp up cooperation with the European Union in punishing Russia over its war in Ukraine, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said.
NATO
NATO allies expect Finland and Sweden to apply to join the alliance in the coming days and will grant membership quickly, diplomats and officials said, as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine forces a radical rethink of European security.
Finnish President Sauli Niinisto is expected to give a green light on Thursday for Finland to join NATO.
Sweden’s ruling Social Democrats called a parliamentary debate for Monday as the country prepares for an expected decision to join NATO, abandoning decades of military non-alignment.
Reconstruction
The president of the European Investment Bank said he supports a multi-trillion-euro “Marshall”-style plan to rebuild Ukraine, pledging the firepower of the EU’s lending arm.
The Paper Tiger Tries to Roar. The Paper Eagle Tries to Screech.
Finland "must be aware of the responsibility and consequences" of joining NATO, Russia's foreign ministry said in a statement Thursday, adding that Russia "will be forced" to take retaliatory steps if the country joins the alliance.
“The statement by Finnish President S. Niinistö and Finnish Prime Minister S. Marin, who spoke today in favor of Finland joining NATO, is a radical change in the country's foreign policy," the Russian foreign ministry said, adding "Helsinki must be aware of the responsibility and consequences of such a move."
Finland's possible accession to NATO would cause serious damage to bilateral Russian-Finnish relations, which are maintaining stability and security in the Northern European region, the ministry said.
"Russia will be forced to take retaliatory steps, both of a military-technical and other nature, in order to stop the threats to its national security that arise in this regard," it said.
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For such a powerful bird, the emits surprisingly weak-sounding calls—usually a series of high-pitched whistling or piping notes.
No More Bridge Over Troubled Waters
Ukraine’s military says it blew up a key Russian crossing on the Siverskyi Donets River on its eastern front, inflicting heavy losses in a potentially significant blow to the Kremlin’s designs on the regions of Luhansk and Kharkiv.
Images shared by the defense ministry appeared to show a ruined pontoon crossing with dozens of destroyed or damaged armored vehicles on both banks.
“Artillerymen of the 17th tank brigade of the #UAarmy have opened the holiday season for [Russian forces],” the ministry said on Twitter. “Some bathed in the Siverskyi Donets River, and some were burned by the May sun.”
Kyiv’s strategic communications directorate tweeted images of smoking wreckage and two ruined bridgeheads, and said that the army’s 80th Separate Assault Brigade had “destroyed all attempts by the Russian occupiers to cross” the river.
The Siverskyi Donets, which flows from southern Russia through the separatist Ukrainian regions of Kharkiv and Luhansk, has become a key barrier against Russia's attempts to shore up the territory it has seized since invading in February.
Ukraine’s military on Wednesday said that Russian forces had been trying to gain full control over Rubizhne, a city of 55,000 people on the eastern bank of the river, and were conducting an offensive on Lyman, some 50 kilometers (about 31 miles) further west.
I Am Sure Putin Will Put Some Poor Ukrainian On Trial as Revenge
More than 10,700 crimes have been registered since the war began by the office of Ukraine’s prosecutor general, led by Iryna Venediktova, and a handful of cases have now been filed or are ready to be submitted in what marks a watershed moment two months into the war.
Vadim Shysimarin, a 21-year-old commander of the Kantemirovskaya Tank Division, who is currently in Ukrainian custody, is expected to be the first to face trial over his alleged murder of a 68-year-old man.
It is alleged Shysimarin, a sergeant, had been fighting in the Sumy region in north-east Ukraine when he killed a civilian on 28 February in the village of Chupakhivka. He is accused of driving a stolen car with four other soldiers as he sought to flee Ukrainian fighters and then shooting dead the unarmed man on a bicycle as he was talking on his phone. He was ordered “to kill a civilian so he would not report them to Ukrainian defenders”, according to prosecutors.
Shrewder than Schröder
A draft resolution drawn up by Spanish MEP Luis Garicano and seen by POLITICO welcomes the EU's "justified sanctions" against Russia. But the text, which will be voted on during a plenary session next week, also "calls on the Council to extend the list of individuals targeted by EU sanctions to the European members of the boards of major Russian companies, including notably ex-Chancellor Gerhard Schröder." Such a move has not yet been put forward by the bloc.
Schröder, German chancellor from 1998 to 2005, has been under pressure to resign from several lucrative positions he holds with Russian energy companies and to publicly denounce Vladimir Putin, but has done neither.
The German politician has strong ties to Moscow and was named chairman of the controversial Nord Stream 2 pipeline connecting Russia to Germany just weeks after leaving office. Widespread fury about Schröder’s position was reignited late last month when the New York Times published an interview with the ex-chancellor in which he said he doesn’t “do mea culpa,” while also dismissing the notion that Putin was behind the massacre of Ukrainians in Bucha, near Kyiv.
Even Moscow Mitch Wants To Help Ukraine
U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said on Thursday that the Senate needs to pass a new aid package for Ukraine today, after the House of Representatives this week approved $40 billion in new assistance for Kyiv.
“I strongly support the next package of lethal military assistance, which the House has passed with an overwhelming bipartisan majority. I hope the Senate can reach an agreement to consider and pass this legislation today. The Ukrainians need it. We need to do it today,” he said on the Senate floor.
They Are Throwing Everything But the Kitchen Sink Against Ukraine
U.S.-led sanctions are forcing Russia to use computer chips from dishwashers and refrigerators in some military equipment, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said Wednesday.
“We have reports from Ukrainians that when they find Russian military equipment on the ground, it’s filled with semiconductors that they took out of dishwashers and refrigerators,” Raimondo told a Senate hearing, noting that she recently met with Ukraine’s prime minister.
U.S. technology exports to Russia have fallen by nearly 70 percent since sanctions began in late February, according to Raimondo, whose department oversees the export controls that form a big part of the sanctions package. Three dozen other countries have adopted similar export bans, which also apply to Belarus.
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Does the Thought of an 18-Year-Old With an AK-47 Make You Feel Safe?
A federal appeals court in California has ruled that the state's ban on the sale of semiautomatic firearms to Americans under 21 is unconstitutional.
In a 2-1 vote, the judges' panel said the law was an "an almost total ban on semiautomatic" rifles for youths.
They found that it violates the Second Amendment to the US Constitution, which guarantees the right to private gun ownership.
The law came in response to failures from Congress to pass gun control.
It took effect in 2019, raising the minimum requirement for rifle and shotgun sales from 18 years to 21. The court ruling brings the minimum age back to 18. The minimum legal age in California for tobacco, alcohol or cannabis sales is 21.
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Taking a Bite Out Of Apple
Apple has lost its position as the world's most valuable company amid a broad sell-off of technology stocks.
Saudi Arabian oil and gas producer Aramco has reclaimed the top spot from the iPhone maker for the first time in almost two years.
Investors have been selling shares in technology firms as they move into what they see as less risky assets.
Bitcoin, other major cryptocurrencies and digital assets have also continued to fall sharply.
Shares in Apple fell by more than 5% in New York on Wednesday to end the trading day with a stock market valuation of $2.37 trillion (£1.94tn).
That meant it lost its position as the most valuable company in the world to oil and gas producer Aramco, which was valued at $2.42tn.
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One Million Officially Dead. Daily Cases and Hospitalizations Doubled in the Last Month.
This moment in time, like so many during the last two-plus years of the pandemic, is a confusing one for our country. Mixed signals make it hard to accurately gauge risk and act accordingly.
On the one hand, with the almost complete lifting of restrictions and mandates around the country, and with case numbers, hospitalizations and deaths at relatively low levels, it’s easy to feel that life is on track to getting back to normal, if not already there.
That’s especially true when someone as cautious as President Joe Biden’s chief medical officer, Dr. Anthony Fauci, says that we are out of the pandemic phase, as he did a couple of weeks ago on PBS NewsHour.
“Namely, we don’t have 900,000 new infections a day and tens and tens and tens of thousands of hospitalizations and thousands of deaths. We are at a low level right now. So, if you’re saying, Are we out of the pandemic phase in this country? We are,” he said.
But hundreds are still dying every day. The United States is marking the tragic milestone of 1 million confirmed Covid-19 deaths. In a statement on Thursday, Biden urged the United States to “remain vigilant against this pandemic and do everything we can to save as many lives as possible.”
Covid-19 cases have been trending up in almost every state; the country is now averaging more than 70,000 new cases per day, according to Johns Hopkins University. Pediatric cases are on the rise too – up 69% from two weeks ago, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Even hospitalizations, a lagging indicator, have been increasing slowly: They’re up in more than half of states (including most of the Northeast and Midwest) compared with last week and as of Thursday morning stand at more than 20,000 – levels last seen at the end of March.
Empty Chairs at Empty Tables
"One million empty chairs around the family dinner table," Biden said in a pre-taped video message. "Each irreplaceable, irreplaceable losses. Each leaving behind a family or community forever changed because of this pandemic. Our heart goes out to all those who are struggling."
Biden is ordering flags be flown at half-staff at the White House and all federal public buildings and grounds until sunset on May 16 in remembrance of those who lost their lives to the virus.
Two Years Later the Weight-Challenged Lady Still Hasn't Sung
Even two years after their initial infection, the majority of people who were hospitalized with Covid-19 early in the pandemic had lingering symptoms, according to a new study that may be one of the longest and largest on record to follow people with long Covid.
The study, published Wednesday in The Lancet, found that 55% of patients still had at least one Covid-19 symptom two years later. That was actually an improvement from six months after infection, when 68% had symptoms.
The researchers from China-Japan Friendship Hospital looked at the records of 1,192 people who had been hospitalized at Jin Yin-tan Hospital in Wuhan, China, and were discharged between January 7 and May 29, 2020.
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Since When Is a Dollar Worth Only 23 Cents?
Within the often head-scratching world of cryptocurrencies, there’s a small but growing sub-species known as “algorithmic stablecoins” that have some investors and regulators ringing alarm bells.
This week, one popular so-called algo coin cratered, wiping out billions of dollars’ worth of value in just a few days.
The coin, called TerraUSD, is designed to maintain its value at $1, forever and ever, amen. Instead, it fell as low as 23 cents Wednesday before recovering some ground. It was hovering around 60 cents early Thursday.
To critics of the controversial crypto product, it’s an “emperor has no clothes” moment. Or, more pessimistically, a Lehman Brothers moment.
To understand what’s going on in this corner of the crypto market, it’s important to understand what these newfangled investing products are and how they work.
With Inflation, It's Worth Even Less
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Guess What? Not Talking About Sex to Kids Doesn't Protect Them From Anything. They'll Get Misinformation Instead.
How can we protect kids? By knowing that sex education and grooming are not the same.
The GOP's reasoning for not teaching young kids about their bodies ignores the fact that when kids learn that anything “down there” is shameful, they are less likely to report abuse.
As sex educators, we are deeply concerned about the recent effort to paint our work as “grooming” or “sexualizing” children. In fact, our goal is the exact opposite: to make sure children have the skills needed to repel the tactics used by predators.
In May 2021, conservative commentator Candace Owens accused one of us of being a pedophile. “he should have to register as a sex offender,” Owens tweeted to her 3 million followers.
While children may not yet be able to verbalize why these lessons are important, there is no scarcity of adults with stories to tell about how lack of appropriate education harmed them as children.
The crime? Acknowledging to first-graders that it’s normal to be curious about their genitals.
In today’s fractious political climate, critics argue that in giving children accurate, scientifically based information about their bodies, we are either preparing them to be molested or are predators ourselves.
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WTF Is Gentle About a Black Hole?
The first-ever image of the Milky Way's supermassive black hole was revealed Thursday, providing the first direct visual evidence of "the gentle giant" that lies at the center of our galaxy.
The photo, which shows an oval-shaped void surrounded by a bright ring of glowing gas, is only the second image captured of a black hole, and is the first to provide a detailed glimpse of the immense feature, dubbed Sagittarius A*, at the Milky Way's core.
“For decades, astronomers have wondered what lies at the heart of our galaxy, pulling stars into tight orbits through its immense gravity,” Michael Johnson, an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, said in a statement.
Now, scientists have the first direct image that confirms that Sagittarius A* is indeed a black hole.
The research was conducted by an international team of astronomers known as the Event Horizon Telescope, which is made up of more than 300 scientists from 80 different institutions around the world.
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Brexit is a Continuing Mess
Britain's foreign secretary warned the European Union on Thursday that the U.K. will have “no choice but to act" to revoke parts of a Brexit agreement on Northern Ireland if the EU does not show flexibility.
Post-Brexit arrangements for border and customs checks in Northern Ireland have become “the greatest obstacle” to forming a new government in Belfast, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said during a call with European Commission Vice President Maros Sefcovic.
Border issues between Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom, and EU member Ireland have long posed the thorniest problems in the U.K.’s divorce from the EU.
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Remember the Brexit bus promise: ‘We send the EU £350 million a week. Let’s fund our NHS instead. Vote leave’? The truth is that quitting the European Union (EU) means there is £173m a week less to spend on the NHS, says the international delivery expert ParcelHero.
ParcelHero’s Head of Consumer Research, David Jinks M.I.L.T., says: ‘Far from saving money, the UK is poorer by £9bn a year, or £173 million a week, after leaving the European Union. Comparing the cost of membership to lost EU export trade, Britain is considerably worse off post-Brexit.’
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How a Supreme Court case about pig farms could muddy looming debate over out-of-state abortions
When the Supreme Court agreed this year to settle a dispute between California and a group of Midwestern pig farmers, the connection to the nation's raging cultural battle over abortion wasn't even part of the discussion.
California's law, after all, is aimed at animal cruelty and intended to ensure pigs have space to move around in their pens. Abortion wasn't raised by either side.
But a number of legal experts believe the case could have implications for a thorny question likely to crop up if the nation’s highest court overturns Roe v. Wade later this year: Whether lawmakers in one state may prohibit people from traveling to another state to obtain an abortion.
Missouri is already eyeing a law that would discourage residents from crossing into neighboring Illinois or other states for the procedure. Other conservative states will almost certainly follow Missouri's lead, a range of experts predict, if the Supreme Court strikes down its landmark 1973 decision establishing a constitutional right to abortion.
A draft opinion in a major abortion case that leaked this month suggests that the 6-3 conservative court is revisiting Roe and a subsequent abortion ruling from 1992. If the high court overrules those precedents, it would shift the abortion battle to states and create a patchwork of laws that will vary depending on which party controls the state legislature.
"The endgame is not just to ban abortion in your state but to ban it everywhere," said Rachel Rebouché, interim dean of the Beasley School of Law at Temple University. "One way states may try to do that is to try to have their laws reach out beyond their borders."
Whether a state can ban residents from obtaining an abortion in another state implicates a complicated legal doctrine known as the dormant commerce clause, which generally bars states from passing laws that discriminate against or excessively burden interstate commerce – including when Congress hasn’t weighed in to clarify the rules. In other words, if Congress has not acted by passing a law affecting interstate commerce, the assumption under the doctrine is that Congress intends an open market without state-imposed regulation.
If you want to pig out on this story
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New Cases 7-Day Average | Deaths 7-Day Average | New Hospitalizations 7-Day Average | |
| May 11 | 84,778 | 272 | |
| May 10 | 78,236 | 326 | 2,629 |
| May 9 | 74,712 | 323 | 2,597 |
| May 8 | 66,564 | 323 | 2,510 |
| May 7 | 67,561 | 335 | 2,310 |
| May 6 | 68,807 | 340 | 2,396 |
| May 5 | 67,263 | 341 | 2.363 |
| May 4 | 64,780 | 334 | 2,267 |
| May 3 | 61,712 | 325 | 2,219 |
| May 2 | 60,410 | 318 | 2.214 |
| May 1 | 57,020 | 307 | 2,072 |
| Apr 30 | 56,581 | 310 | 1,882 |
| Apr 29 | 56,166 | 308 | 1,946 |
| Apr 28 | 54,696 | 311 | 1,955 |
| Apr 27 | 53,133 | 334 | 1,941 |
| Apr 26 | 48,692 | 299 | 1,889 |
| 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 |
| Feb 16, 2021 | 78,292 |
| At Least One Dose | Fully Vaccinated | % of Vaccinated W/ Boosters | |
| % of Total Population | 77.7% | 66.3% | 45.9% |
| % of Population 5+ | 82.6% | 70.4% | |
| % of Population 12+ | 87.4% | 74.7% | 47.7% |
| % of Population 18+ | 89.1% | 76.2% | 49.5% |
| % of Population 65+ | 95.0% | 90.4% | 68.8% |
California Precipitation (Updated Tuesday May 10)
We had some rain up north this week.
| Percent of Average for this Date | Last Week | 2 Weeks Ago | 4 Weeks Ago | |
| Northern Sierra Precipitation | 80% (75%) | 80% (74%) | 81% (74%) | 73% (63% of full season average) |
| San Joaquin Precipitation | 65% (61%) | 66% (61%) | 67% (61%) | 65% (57%) |
| Tulare Basin Precipitation | 61% (57%) | 61% (57%) | 62% (57%) | 61% (53%) |
| Snow Water Content - North | 29% | |||
| Snow Water Content - Central | 26% | |||
| Snow Water Content - South | 9% |
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My New Stair Lift Is Just Driving Me Up the Wall.
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Today's Worst Person in the World Nominees
Murder, Most Foul
When Leonid Pliats and his boss were shot in the back by Russian soldiers, the killing was captured on CCTV cameras in clear and terrible detail. The footage, which was obtained by the BBC, is now being investigated by Ukrainian prosecutors as a suspected war crime.
It was the height of the fighting around Kyiv and the main roads into the capital were a battlefield, including around the bicycle shop where Leonid worked as a security guard.
But this was no firefight: the video clearly shows heavily armed Russian soldiers shooting the two unarmed Ukrainians and then looting the business.
We have pieced together the full sequence of events, matching what was recorded on multiple CCTV cameras around the site with the testimony of people Leonid phoned that day, as well as the Ukrainian volunteer fighters who tried to rescue him.
They Are Suing For More Screwing. Are They Republicans? Forcing a Woman to Have an Unwanted Baby?
An Indian couple is taking their son to court, demanding that he and his wife either produce a grandchild within a year or cough up almost $650,000.
Sanjeev and Sadhana Prasad say they exhausted their savings by raising and educating their pilot son and paying for a lavish wedding.
Now they want payback.
“My son has been married for six years but they are still not planning a baby. At least if we have a grandchild to spend time with, our pain will become bearable,” the couple said in their petition filed with a court in the north Indian town of Haridwar last week.
The compensation they are demanding is 50 million rupees ($650,000), which includes the cost of a wedding reception in a five-star hotel, a luxury car worth $80,000 and paying for the couple’s honeymoon abroad, the Times of India reported on Thursday.
The parents also forked out $65,000 to get their son trained as a pilot in the United States, only for him to return to India unemployed, the paper said.
“We also had to take a loan to build our house and now we are going through a lot of financial hardships. Mentally too we are quite disturbed because we are living alone,” the couple said in their petition.
The couple’s lawyer Arvind Kumar said the petition will be taken up for hearing by the court in northern India on May 17.
How Do You Burn a Digital Book?
E-reader apps that became a lifeline for students during the pandemic are now in the crossfire of a culture war raging over books in schools and public libraries.
In several states, apps and the companies that run them have been targeted by conservative parents who have pushed schools and public libraries to shut down their digital programs, which let users download and read books on their smartphones, tablets or laptops.
Some parents want the apps banned for their children, or even for all students. And they’re getting results.
A school superintendent in a suburb of Nashville, Tennessee, pulled his system’s e-reader offline for a week last month, cutting access for 40,000 students, after a parent searched the Epic library available on her kindergartener’s laptop and found books supporting gay pride.
In a rural county northwest of Austin, Texas, county officials cut off access to the OverDrive digital library that local residents had used for a decade to find books to read for pleasure, prompting a federal lawsuit against the county.
And on the east coast of Florida, the Brevard County school system removed the Epic app from its computer system, saying it didn’t want kids to have access to material that their own school librarians had not vetted.
Lufthansa Acts Like They Have Air for Brains
German airline Lufthansa has apologized for refusing to let any members of a large group of Orthodox Jewish passengers onto a flight after some of them had refused to wear masks.
In a statement late Tuesday, Lufthansa said that it “regrets the circumstances surrounding the decision to exclude the affected passengers from the flight, for which Lufthansa sincerely apologizes.”
The airline said it was reviewing what had happened during the incident on May 4, involving passengers from New York transiting in Frankfurt for a flight to Budapest.
Some of the passengers had allegedly refused to comply with rules requiring them to wear face masks, whereupon Lufthansa staff allegedly blocked all passengers who were visibly identifiable as Jews from boarding their connecting flight, German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported.
Local German media reported that the staff excluded those passengers who were recognizable as Jews because they were wearing skull caps or had sidelocks.
“We regret that the large group was denied boarding rather than limiting it to the non-compliant guests,” the airline said.
“We have zero tolerance for racism, antisemitism and discrimination of any type,” it added.
What is the Evangelical Version of Sharia Law?
...On the topic of abortion in particular, sharia is by far more flexible and willing to look into the context on a case-by-case basis before a final ruling, and there are no punishments threatening the woman. Sharia law remains a synonym for extremism, despite Muslims explaining for more than two decades that it is not that simple. The ease with which Islam becomes a reference point for all that is inherently backward each time conservatives in America inflict another regression of civil liberties is telling, even when the intentions are not to “otherize” Muslims.
When people of Muslim majority countries learn about Evangelicals and conservative lawmakers, other comparisons are made. “They are like our Islamist parties,” for example, in that once they obtain power using democratic and legal means mostly, their first targets are often women and minorities.
A few years back I coined the name “Asaeb Ahl Al-Hick” for white nationalist militias, a play on the infamous, ultra-fanatic, Iraqi state-sponsored militia Asaeb Ahl Al Haq. The difference is Muslims find the similarities as evidence that all faiths, beliefs and ideologies carry fundamental, extreme ideals, and there are followers who strive to make those ideals a reality and fact for others. It is proof we are far more alike than our supposed differences.
Our Laws Take Into Account the Wishes of the Female Sea Turtle
Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) attracted ridicule this week after he compared women and fetuses to sea turtles, eagles and their eggs as he argued against a bill proposed by Democrats that would guarantee the right to abortion under federal law.
According to Daines’ analogy, which was delivered on the Senate floor complete with a visual aid, the legislation would give fetuses fewer protections than turtle and eagle eggs.
“If you were to take or destroy the eggs of a sea turtle, now I said the eggs. Not the hatchlings, that’s also a [unintelligible], the criminal penalties are severe. Up to $100,000 fine and a year in prison. Now why?” Daines said. “Why do we have laws in place that protect the eggs of a sea turtle or the eggs of eagles? Because when you destroy an egg, you’re killing a preborn baby sea turtle or a preborn baby eagle.”
This Stinks Worse Than Horse Manure
Eric Reed, the trainer of Kentucky Derby long shot winner Rich Strike, appeared to sidestep ESPN’s questions on Wednesday about a demeaning tweet he allegedly wrote about Vice President Kamala Harris.
Reed has been accused of making a sexist slur in a Twitter response to former Trump adviser Sebastian Gorka, the New York Post reported.
Gorka asked on social media in January, “So what exactly are Kamala’s qualifications?” To which an account that appears linked to Reed replied: “Heard she’s good on her knees!!”
Your Wife Or Daughter Might Be Committing Murder in a Month or Two
With trigger laws in 13 states poised to go into effect if the Supreme Court strikes down Roe v. Wade, a new era of restricted access to birth control could unfold in states that narrowly define when life begins, legal experts say.
“This is the new Jane Crow that we’re about to enter,” said Michele Goodwin, a chancellor’s professor of law at the University of California, Irvine, and the author of “Policing the Womb: Invisible Women and the Criminalization of Motherhood.”
“It’s no longer a hypothetical — the reality is already here,” Goodwin said, pointing to states that are considering legislation to limit which kinds of birth control residents can acquire, like Louisiana and Idaho.
Some conservative lawmakers wasted no time signaling they were looking into restricting or banning certain types of emergency contraception, such as Plan B and other morning-after pills that can be used within 72 hours of intercourse to prevent pregnancy.
A leading Republican state legislator in Idaho suggested last week that he would be open to holding hearings on banning emergency birth control, and Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., recently denounced Griswold v. Connecticut, the 1965 case that expanded access to contraception to unmarried people.
In Louisiana, legislation would classify abortion as a homicide and define “personhood” as beginning from the moment of fertilization. Contraception methods like Plan B and certain types of intrauterine devices, or IUDs, could be restricted under the bill, said Cathren Cohen, a scholar of law and policy at the UCLA Law Center.
“Anything that would prevent a fertilized egg from turning into a pregnancy and being born into a baby could be considered a homicide,” she said. “If you define a pregnancy and you define a person as including just this fertilized egg, then technically you are legislating that an IUD can cause an abortion.”
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Today's Best Person in the World Nominees
Should You Stop to Put Your Shoe Back on in a 200-Meter Race?
Originalism Sucks! "The Regime Of Their Barber's Ancestors"
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Invasions Have Consequences
Day 78
Fighting
Ukrainian forces are keeping up a counterattack to the north of the second largest city of Kharkiv and recapturing several towns and villages towards the Russian border, the British defence ministry said.
Ukrainian officials issued dire warnings about the fate of civilians and the last fighters in the southern port of Mariupol, after weeks of Russian bombardment which the city’s mayor said had turned it into a “medieval ghetto”.
Ukraine’s army said 788 cruise and ballistic missiles have been launched on targets in Ukraine from the territories of Russia and Belarus since the start of the invasion.
In Zaporizhzhia, in the country’s south, locals reported a Russian unit shot up 20 of its vehicles to avoid combat duty.
Political and human impact
The Russian-occupied region of Kherson in Ukraine plans to ask Russian President Putin to incorporate it into Russia, TASS news agency said, citing a Russian official. The deposed governor said the region’s people want to return to being part of Ukraine.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he is deeply concerned about hunger becoming widespread as the war in Ukraine threatens food security in different parts of the world.
Kyiv’s top prosecutor has announced that Ukraine will launch its first war crimes trial over Moscow’s ongoing invasion, bringing a 21-year-old Russian soldier to the stand.
Energy and sanctions
Russian gas flows to Europe via Ukraine fell by a quarter after Ukrainian forces halted the use of the Sokhranovka transit route.
Moscow has slapped sanctions on the owner of the Polish part of the Yamal pipeline that brings Russian gas to Europe, as well as the former German unit of Russian gas producer Gazprom, whose subsidiaries service Europe.
Germany is examining the Russian announcement of sanctions on parts of Gazprom Germania, an economy ministry spokesperson said.
Japan will ramp up cooperation with the European Union in punishing Russia over its war in Ukraine, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said.
NATO
NATO allies expect Finland and Sweden to apply to join the alliance in the coming days and will grant membership quickly, diplomats and officials said, as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine forces a radical rethink of European security.
Finnish President Sauli Niinisto is expected to give a green light on Thursday for Finland to join NATO.
Sweden’s ruling Social Democrats called a parliamentary debate for Monday as the country prepares for an expected decision to join NATO, abandoning decades of military non-alignment.
Reconstruction
The president of the European Investment Bank said he supports a multi-trillion-euro “Marshall”-style plan to rebuild Ukraine, pledging the firepower of the EU’s lending arm.
Finland "must be aware of the responsibility and consequences" of joining NATO, Russia's foreign ministry said in a statement Thursday, adding that Russia "will be forced" to take retaliatory steps if the country joins the alliance.
“The statement by Finnish President S. Niinistö and Finnish Prime Minister S. Marin, who spoke today in favor of Finland joining NATO, is a radical change in the country's foreign policy," the Russian foreign ministry said, adding "Helsinki must be aware of the responsibility and consequences of such a move."
Finland's possible accession to NATO would cause serious damage to bilateral Russian-Finnish relations, which are maintaining stability and security in the Northern European region, the ministry said.
"Russia will be forced to take retaliatory steps, both of a military-technical and other nature, in order to stop the threats to its national security that arise in this regard," it said.
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For such a powerful bird, the emits surprisingly weak-sounding calls—usually a series of high-pitched whistling or piping notes.
No More Bridge Over Troubled Waters
Ukraine’s military says it blew up a key Russian crossing on the Siverskyi Donets River on its eastern front, inflicting heavy losses in a potentially significant blow to the Kremlin’s designs on the regions of Luhansk and Kharkiv.
Images shared by the defense ministry appeared to show a ruined pontoon crossing with dozens of destroyed or damaged armored vehicles on both banks.
“Artillerymen of the 17th tank brigade of the #UAarmy have opened the holiday season for [Russian forces],” the ministry said on Twitter. “Some bathed in the Siverskyi Donets River, and some were burned by the May sun.”
Kyiv’s strategic communications directorate tweeted images of smoking wreckage and two ruined bridgeheads, and said that the army’s 80th Separate Assault Brigade had “destroyed all attempts by the Russian occupiers to cross” the river.
The Siverskyi Donets, which flows from southern Russia through the separatist Ukrainian regions of Kharkiv and Luhansk, has become a key barrier against Russia's attempts to shore up the territory it has seized since invading in February.
Ukraine’s military on Wednesday said that Russian forces had been trying to gain full control over Rubizhne, a city of 55,000 people on the eastern bank of the river, and were conducting an offensive on Lyman, some 50 kilometers (about 31 miles) further west.
I Am Sure Putin Will Put Some Poor Ukrainian On Trial as Revenge
More than 10,700 crimes have been registered since the war began by the office of Ukraine’s prosecutor general, led by Iryna Venediktova, and a handful of cases have now been filed or are ready to be submitted in what marks a watershed moment two months into the war.
Vadim Shysimarin, a 21-year-old commander of the Kantemirovskaya Tank Division, who is currently in Ukrainian custody, is expected to be the first to face trial over his alleged murder of a 68-year-old man.
It is alleged Shysimarin, a sergeant, had been fighting in the Sumy region in north-east Ukraine when he killed a civilian on 28 February in the village of Chupakhivka. He is accused of driving a stolen car with four other soldiers as he sought to flee Ukrainian fighters and then shooting dead the unarmed man on a bicycle as he was talking on his phone. He was ordered “to kill a civilian so he would not report them to Ukrainian defenders”, according to prosecutors.
Shrewder than Schröder
A draft resolution drawn up by Spanish MEP Luis Garicano and seen by POLITICO welcomes the EU's "justified sanctions" against Russia. But the text, which will be voted on during a plenary session next week, also "calls on the Council to extend the list of individuals targeted by EU sanctions to the European members of the boards of major Russian companies, including notably ex-Chancellor Gerhard Schröder." Such a move has not yet been put forward by the bloc.
Schröder, German chancellor from 1998 to 2005, has been under pressure to resign from several lucrative positions he holds with Russian energy companies and to publicly denounce Vladimir Putin, but has done neither.
The German politician has strong ties to Moscow and was named chairman of the controversial Nord Stream 2 pipeline connecting Russia to Germany just weeks after leaving office. Widespread fury about Schröder’s position was reignited late last month when the New York Times published an interview with the ex-chancellor in which he said he doesn’t “do mea culpa,” while also dismissing the notion that Putin was behind the massacre of Ukrainians in Bucha, near Kyiv.
Even Moscow Mitch Wants To Help Ukraine
U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said on Thursday that the Senate needs to pass a new aid package for Ukraine today, after the House of Representatives this week approved $40 billion in new assistance for Kyiv.
“I strongly support the next package of lethal military assistance, which the House has passed with an overwhelming bipartisan majority. I hope the Senate can reach an agreement to consider and pass this legislation today. The Ukrainians need it. We need to do it today,” he said on the Senate floor.
They Are Throwing Everything But the Kitchen Sink Against Ukraine
U.S.-led sanctions are forcing Russia to use computer chips from dishwashers and refrigerators in some military equipment, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said Wednesday.
“We have reports from Ukrainians that when they find Russian military equipment on the ground, it’s filled with semiconductors that they took out of dishwashers and refrigerators,” Raimondo told a Senate hearing, noting that she recently met with Ukraine’s prime minister.
U.S. technology exports to Russia have fallen by nearly 70 percent since sanctions began in late February, according to Raimondo, whose department oversees the export controls that form a big part of the sanctions package. Three dozen other countries have adopted similar export bans, which also apply to Belarus.
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Does the Thought of an 18-Year-Old With an AK-47 Make You Feel Safe?
A federal appeals court in California has ruled that the state's ban on the sale of semiautomatic firearms to Americans under 21 is unconstitutional.
In a 2-1 vote, the judges' panel said the law was an "an almost total ban on semiautomatic" rifles for youths.
They found that it violates the Second Amendment to the US Constitution, which guarantees the right to private gun ownership.
The law came in response to failures from Congress to pass gun control.
It took effect in 2019, raising the minimum requirement for rifle and shotgun sales from 18 years to 21. The court ruling brings the minimum age back to 18. The minimum legal age in California for tobacco, alcohol or cannabis sales is 21.
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Taking a Bite Out Of Apple
Apple has lost its position as the world's most valuable company amid a broad sell-off of technology stocks.
Saudi Arabian oil and gas producer Aramco has reclaimed the top spot from the iPhone maker for the first time in almost two years.
Investors have been selling shares in technology firms as they move into what they see as less risky assets.
Bitcoin, other major cryptocurrencies and digital assets have also continued to fall sharply.
Shares in Apple fell by more than 5% in New York on Wednesday to end the trading day with a stock market valuation of $2.37 trillion (£1.94tn).
That meant it lost its position as the most valuable company in the world to oil and gas producer Aramco, which was valued at $2.42tn.
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One Million Officially Dead. Daily Cases and Hospitalizations Doubled in the Last Month.
This moment in time, like so many during the last two-plus years of the pandemic, is a confusing one for our country. Mixed signals make it hard to accurately gauge risk and act accordingly.
On the one hand, with the almost complete lifting of restrictions and mandates around the country, and with case numbers, hospitalizations and deaths at relatively low levels, it’s easy to feel that life is on track to getting back to normal, if not already there.
That’s especially true when someone as cautious as President Joe Biden’s chief medical officer, Dr. Anthony Fauci, says that we are out of the pandemic phase, as he did a couple of weeks ago on PBS NewsHour.
“Namely, we don’t have 900,000 new infections a day and tens and tens and tens of thousands of hospitalizations and thousands of deaths. We are at a low level right now. So, if you’re saying, Are we out of the pandemic phase in this country? We are,” he said.
But hundreds are still dying every day. The United States is marking the tragic milestone of 1 million confirmed Covid-19 deaths. In a statement on Thursday, Biden urged the United States to “remain vigilant against this pandemic and do everything we can to save as many lives as possible.”
Covid-19 cases have been trending up in almost every state; the country is now averaging more than 70,000 new cases per day, according to Johns Hopkins University. Pediatric cases are on the rise too – up 69% from two weeks ago, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Even hospitalizations, a lagging indicator, have been increasing slowly: They’re up in more than half of states (including most of the Northeast and Midwest) compared with last week and as of Thursday morning stand at more than 20,000 – levels last seen at the end of March.
Empty Chairs at Empty Tables
"One million empty chairs around the family dinner table," Biden said in a pre-taped video message. "Each irreplaceable, irreplaceable losses. Each leaving behind a family or community forever changed because of this pandemic. Our heart goes out to all those who are struggling."
Biden is ordering flags be flown at half-staff at the White House and all federal public buildings and grounds until sunset on May 16 in remembrance of those who lost their lives to the virus.
Two Years Later the Weight-Challenged Lady Still Hasn't Sung
Even two years after their initial infection, the majority of people who were hospitalized with Covid-19 early in the pandemic had lingering symptoms, according to a new study that may be one of the longest and largest on record to follow people with long Covid.
The study, published Wednesday in The Lancet, found that 55% of patients still had at least one Covid-19 symptom two years later. That was actually an improvement from six months after infection, when 68% had symptoms.
The researchers from China-Japan Friendship Hospital looked at the records of 1,192 people who had been hospitalized at Jin Yin-tan Hospital in Wuhan, China, and were discharged between January 7 and May 29, 2020.
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Since When Is a Dollar Worth Only 23 Cents?
Within the often head-scratching world of cryptocurrencies, there’s a small but growing sub-species known as “algorithmic stablecoins” that have some investors and regulators ringing alarm bells.
This week, one popular so-called algo coin cratered, wiping out billions of dollars’ worth of value in just a few days.
The coin, called TerraUSD, is designed to maintain its value at $1, forever and ever, amen. Instead, it fell as low as 23 cents Wednesday before recovering some ground. It was hovering around 60 cents early Thursday.
To critics of the controversial crypto product, it’s an “emperor has no clothes” moment. Or, more pessimistically, a Lehman Brothers moment.
To understand what’s going on in this corner of the crypto market, it’s important to understand what these newfangled investing products are and how they work.
With Inflation, It's Worth Even Less
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Guess What? Not Talking About Sex to Kids Doesn't Protect Them From Anything. They'll Get Misinformation Instead.
How can we protect kids? By knowing that sex education and grooming are not the same.
The GOP's reasoning for not teaching young kids about their bodies ignores the fact that when kids learn that anything “down there” is shameful, they are less likely to report abuse.
As sex educators, we are deeply concerned about the recent effort to paint our work as “grooming” or “sexualizing” children. In fact, our goal is the exact opposite: to make sure children have the skills needed to repel the tactics used by predators.
In May 2021, conservative commentator Candace Owens accused one of us of being a pedophile. “he should have to register as a sex offender,” Owens tweeted to her 3 million followers.
While children may not yet be able to verbalize why these lessons are important, there is no scarcity of adults with stories to tell about how lack of appropriate education harmed them as children.
The crime? Acknowledging to first-graders that it’s normal to be curious about their genitals.
In today’s fractious political climate, critics argue that in giving children accurate, scientifically based information about their bodies, we are either preparing them to be molested or are predators ourselves.
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WTF Is Gentle About a Black Hole?
The first-ever image of the Milky Way's supermassive black hole was revealed Thursday, providing the first direct visual evidence of "the gentle giant" that lies at the center of our galaxy.
The photo, which shows an oval-shaped void surrounded by a bright ring of glowing gas, is only the second image captured of a black hole, and is the first to provide a detailed glimpse of the immense feature, dubbed Sagittarius A*, at the Milky Way's core.
“For decades, astronomers have wondered what lies at the heart of our galaxy, pulling stars into tight orbits through its immense gravity,” Michael Johnson, an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, said in a statement.
Now, scientists have the first direct image that confirms that Sagittarius A* is indeed a black hole.
The research was conducted by an international team of astronomers known as the Event Horizon Telescope, which is made up of more than 300 scientists from 80 different institutions around the world.
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Brexit is a Continuing Mess
Britain's foreign secretary warned the European Union on Thursday that the U.K. will have “no choice but to act" to revoke parts of a Brexit agreement on Northern Ireland if the EU does not show flexibility.
Post-Brexit arrangements for border and customs checks in Northern Ireland have become “the greatest obstacle” to forming a new government in Belfast, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said during a call with European Commission Vice President Maros Sefcovic.
Border issues between Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom, and EU member Ireland have long posed the thorniest problems in the U.K.’s divorce from the EU.
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Remember the Brexit bus promise: ‘We send the EU £350 million a week. Let’s fund our NHS instead. Vote leave’? The truth is that quitting the European Union (EU) means there is £173m a week less to spend on the NHS, says the international delivery expert ParcelHero.
ParcelHero’s Head of Consumer Research, David Jinks M.I.L.T., says: ‘Far from saving money, the UK is poorer by £9bn a year, or £173 million a week, after leaving the European Union. Comparing the cost of membership to lost EU export trade, Britain is considerably worse off post-Brexit.’
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How a Supreme Court case about pig farms could muddy looming debate over out-of-state abortions
When the Supreme Court agreed this year to settle a dispute between California and a group of Midwestern pig farmers, the connection to the nation's raging cultural battle over abortion wasn't even part of the discussion.
California's law, after all, is aimed at animal cruelty and intended to ensure pigs have space to move around in their pens. Abortion wasn't raised by either side.
But a number of legal experts believe the case could have implications for a thorny question likely to crop up if the nation’s highest court overturns Roe v. Wade later this year: Whether lawmakers in one state may prohibit people from traveling to another state to obtain an abortion.
Missouri is already eyeing a law that would discourage residents from crossing into neighboring Illinois or other states for the procedure. Other conservative states will almost certainly follow Missouri's lead, a range of experts predict, if the Supreme Court strikes down its landmark 1973 decision establishing a constitutional right to abortion.
A draft opinion in a major abortion case that leaked this month suggests that the 6-3 conservative court is revisiting Roe and a subsequent abortion ruling from 1992. If the high court overrules those precedents, it would shift the abortion battle to states and create a patchwork of laws that will vary depending on which party controls the state legislature.
"The endgame is not just to ban abortion in your state but to ban it everywhere," said Rachel Rebouché, interim dean of the Beasley School of Law at Temple University. "One way states may try to do that is to try to have their laws reach out beyond their borders."
Whether a state can ban residents from obtaining an abortion in another state implicates a complicated legal doctrine known as the dormant commerce clause, which generally bars states from passing laws that discriminate against or excessively burden interstate commerce – including when Congress hasn’t weighed in to clarify the rules. In other words, if Congress has not acted by passing a law affecting interstate commerce, the assumption under the doctrine is that Congress intends an open market without state-imposed regulation.
If you want to pig out on this story
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