"Darwin was the first to use data from nature to convince people that evolution is true, and his idea of natural selection was truly novel. It testifies to his genius that the concept of natural theology, accepted by most educated Westerners before 1859, was vanquished within only a few years by a single five-hundred-page book. On the Origin of Species turned the mysteries of life's diversity from mythology into genuine science." -- Jerry Coyne
The revolt was led by a hedge fund that is demanding that the major fossil fuel company improve its financial governance and come up with a viable way to deal with the existential threat of climate change.
President Biden, who delivers remarks from the White House on Tuesday, has faced pressure to better model the benefits of getting the vaccine and expedite a return to normalcy.
NASA is going to land on the moon again, maybe as soon as next year.
It will still be a while — no sooner than 2024 — before any astronauts return, but NASA plans to send experiments and technology packages on a series of small robotic landers carrying to the lunar surface.
On Friday, NASA announced the first orders for those deliveries, awarding them to Astrobotic Technology of Pittsburgh, Intuitive Machines of Houston and Orbit Beyond of Edison, N.J.
NASA officials said a hands-off approach — the companies will design, build and operate the spacecraft, not NASA — would speed the work at a lower cost. The agency also made its decisions in a few months, a quicker pace than most NASA programs.
“NASA is just a customer here,” said Chris Culbert, the manager of the program, known as Commercial Lunar Payload Services, or CLPS, for short. “NASA is taking a back seat role, if you will, in how we participate.”
Although not as exciting as a human mission — which the agency optimistically hopes to accomplish before the end of 2024 — these landers would be the first American spacecraft to land on the moon since the astronauts of Apollo 17 left there in 1972.
Orbit Beyond is aiming to be the first to take off, in September 2020. The company, with NASA’s award of $97 million, has proposed flying as many as four payloads to Mare Imbrium, a lava plain in one of the moon’s largest craters.
Astrobotic is aiming to launch in summer 2021. It has been awarded $79.5 million and has proposed flying as many as 14 payloads to Lacus Mortis, another lunar crater.
Intuitive Machines has been awarded $77 million to fly as many as five payloads to Oceanus Procellarum, an intriguing dark spot on the moon.
While not large or well known, the three companies are not starting from scratch. Astrobotic has been in business for a dozen years, first started to compete for the Google Lunar X Prize, which offered a $25 million prize for the first private organization to land on the moon. Astrobotic dropped out of the X Prize race, which ended last year without a winner. But the company continued its work, convinced that there a viable commercial market for taking payloads to the lunar surface would emerge.
Orbit Beyond is the using the lander technology of another X Prize competitor, India’s Team Indus, and Intuitive Machines is led by Stephen J. Altemus, a former deputy director of NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
In November, NASA announced that it had selected nine companies to compete for up to $2.6 billion over the next decade under the CLPS program.
“This first round of payloads was selected from hardware that was in-house at NASA, largely already ready or things we could have ready by the end of the year,” Mr. Culbert said.
Those included instruments to measure radiation, the moon’smagnetic field and surface composition, advanced solar arrays and a navigation beacon.
NASA did not specify a specific destination and allowed the companies to propose which instruments they wanted to carry.
“We’ll get value out of all these payloads no matter where they go,” Mr. Culbert said. Future orders are likely be directed to specific lunar destinations like one of the poles or the far side of the moon.
For example, the Astrobotic mission will carry 14 non-NASA payloads.
For future flights, spacecraft like these could survey potential landing sites for human missions. The next astronaut missions are to head near the lunar South Pole where there is ice frozen in the eternal shadows of some craters. The ice would not only be a source of water, but could also be broken apart into hydrogen and oxygen. Both could provide propellant for rocket engines, and the oxygen would also provide air for astronauts to breathe.
No one knows how hard it will be to extract ice; it could be sparsely distributed and mixed with dirt and rocks.
The missions could also deliver prototypes of future telescopes and other scientific instruments.
Unlike past moon programs, which have been designed and operated by NASA, the space agency wants to take a low-cost, high-risk approach.
Thomas Zurbuchen, the associate administrator for NASA’s science directorate, uses a hockey analogy: NASA wants to take many shots on goal, not expecting all of them to score.
Some, maybe most, of these companies will likely fail. But the hope is that effort kick-starts a new industry, essentially a FedEx or U.P.S. to the moon, much like SpaceX got in the business of carrying supplies to the International Space Station at lower cost and was able to use the same rocket for commercial satellite launches. Eventually the companies that succeed could offer services not only to NASA but to companies also wanting to set up shop on the moon.
What is unknown is how skilled these companies are and how good a goalie the moon is at blocking spacecraft.
Kenneth Chang has been at The Times since 2000, writing about physics, geology, chemistry, and the planets. Before becoming a science writer, he was a graduate student whose research involved the control of chaos. @kchangnyt
A Virginia Beach city worker walked into a municipal building on Friday afternoon and fired on co-workers indiscriminately, killing at least 11 people and injuring six others, the authorities said.
Chief James A. Cervera of the Virginia Beach Police Department said the gunman, who was a current, longtime city employee, was dead after officers opened fire. Officials said the gunman fired on his victims immediately.
“This is the most devastating day in the history of Virginia Beach,” Mayor Robert M. Dyer said at an evening news conference.
The identities of the gunman and the victims were not released.
One of those injured was a police officer, who was saved by his bulletproof vest, Chief Cervera said.
The chief called the shooting a “devastating incident that happened that none of us want to be here talking about,” adding that it was “going to change the lives of a number of families in our city.”
The shooting began shortly after 4 p.m. at the Virginia Beach Municipal Center, a campus of city offices and agencies, including the Police Department. The shooting unfolded on multiple floors in Building No. 2, which includes offices for planning and public works, among others, and is adjacent to City Hall.
Dale T. Gauding, a spokesman for Sentara Healthcare, said five patients were taken to Sentara Virginia Beach General Hospital.
One patient at Sentara Princess Anne Hospital was being picked up by helicopter and transferred to a trauma center at Sentara Norfolk General Hospital, he said. Details on their conditions were not immediately available.
“This day will not define Virginia Beach,” a Council member, Aaron Rouse, said at the news conference. “We will show the strength of our city.”
Another Council member, Barbara Henley, told The Virginian-Pilot that she was pulling up to City Hall, when she heard police sirens and saw police cars.
“I thought it was an accident,” Ms. Henley said.
She said she learned there had been a shooting and heard a male voice shout, “Get down!”
People scattered.
“I was scared to death,” she said.
“This is a tragic day for Virginia Beach and our entire Commonwealth,’’ Gov. Ralph Northam of Virginia said on Twitter at 6:53 p.m. “My heart breaks for the victims of this devastating shooting, their families, and all who loved them. I am on my way to Virginia Beach now and will be there within the hour.”
In 2011, one of those desperate viewers was Larry Fardette, then based in California. Larry watched a lot of similar televangelists, known as prosperity preachers, who explicitly link wealth and religion. But he found Coontz particularly compelling. He assured quick returns. He seemed like a results man.
And Larry needed some fast results.
The Fardette family was going through a tough time. Larry's daughter was seriously ill and he had health problems of his own. His construction business was struggling, and to make matters worse both his van and his car broke down irreparably within the same week. When a local junkyard offered him $600 for the van, he thumbed the bills thoughtfully and remembered Coontz's rousing speech.
Maybe he should invest the sum as a "seed"?
He instantly recalled the specific number that Coontz had repeated again and again: $273. It was a figure the preacher often used. "God gave me the single greatest miracle of my lifetime in one day, and the numbers two, seven and three were involved," he once said. It is also - perhaps not coincidentally - the number of Coontz's $1.38m condo in South Carolina, paid for by his church, Rockwealth, according to local TV channel WSOC-TV.
Larry has now come to realise there was no foundation to Coontz's promises that donated cash would multiply, but at the time the stirring speeches gave him hope. He did not see any other way out.
He sent off two cheques: one for $273 and another for $333, as requested. Then he waited for his miracle.
I finished a chess game with somebody in Freiburg, Germany. I never heard of that city so I looked it up. As usual for Germany, the city is beautiful and very clean. In Idiot America people like to throw their garbage out their car window on other people's lawns. That's not the way it is in beautiful Germany.
Quick facts Freiburg im Breisgau, a vibrant university city in southwest Germany’s Black Forest, is known for its temperate climate and reconstructed medieval old town, crisscrossed by picturesque brooks (bächle). In the surrounding highlands, hiking destination Schlossberg hill is linked to Freiburg by a funicular. With a dramatic 116m spire, the Gothic cathedral Freiburg Minster towers over the central square Münsterplatz.
Freiburg im Breisgau (German: [ˈfʁaɪbʊɐ̯k ʔɪm ˈbʁaɪsɡaʊ] (listen); Alemannic German: Friburg im Brisgau[ˈfʁiːb̥əɡ̊]) is a city in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, with a population of about 220,000. In the south-west of the country, it straddles the Dreisam river, at the foot of the Schlossberg. Historically, the city has acted as the hub of the Breisgau region on the western edge of the Black Forest in the Upper Rhine Plain. A famous old German university town, and archiepiscopal seat, Freiburg was incorporated in the early twelfth century and developed into a major commercial, intellectual, and ecclesiastical center of the upper Rhine region. The city is known for its medieval minster and Renaissance university, as well as for its high standard of living and advanced environmental practices. The city is situated in the heart of the major Baden wine-growing region and serves as the primary tourist entry point to the scenic beauty of the Black Forest. According to meteorological statistics, the city is the sunniest and warmest in Germany, and held the all-time German temperature record of 40.2 °C (104.4 °F) from 2003 to 2015.
Because of its scenic beauty, relatively warm and sunny climate, and easy access to the Black Forest, Freiburg is a hub for regional tourism.
The longest cable car run in Germany, which is 3.6 kilometres (2.2 mi) long, runs from Günterstal up to a nearby mountain called Schauinsland.
The city has an unusual system of gutters (called Freiburg Bächle) that run throughout its centre. These Bächle, once used to provide water to fight fires and feed livestock, are constantly flowing with water diverted from the Dreisam. They were never intended to be used for sewage, and even in the Middle Ages such use could lead to harsh penalties. During the summer, the running water provides natural cooling of the air, and offers a pleasant gurgling sound. It is said that if one accidentally falls or steps into a Bächle, they will marry a Freiburger, or 'Bobbele'.
Charles Darwin, the man who killed God. He threw out the Magic Man fantasy because he knew too much about science.
By the way, why do Christian assholes threaten people with their childish hell fantasy? Is it because of their extreme stupidity or are they just assholes?
Christians, besides being retards, are cowards. Reality makes them cry.
I never met a Christian who wasn't a stupid fucking cowardly asshole.
The Dow Jones opened sharply lower Friday, along with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq composite, tumbling to new stock market correction lows after President Donald Trump announced tariffs on all Mexican goods, starting June 10.
General Motors (GM), Ford (F), Fiat Chrysler(FCAU) and other automakers were big early losers, but Caterpillar (CAT) and Apple stock also took part in the broad sell-off. This latest trade war threatens to roil the economy and deal a blow to Trump 2020 re-election hopes.
Separately, Okta (OKTA), Zscaler (ZS), and Uber Technologies (UBER) were active after the 2017, 2018 and 2019 initial public offerings reported earnings late Thursday. Okta stock jumped Friday while fellow cybersecurity play Zscaler stock sold off. Uber stock rose after its first earnings report since its May IPO.
Mexico Tariffs Up To 25%
Trump late Thursday declared a new trade war, this time with Mexico. He said Mexican tariffs will start at 5% on June 10 and increase until illegal immigration from the southern border has been stopped.
On June 10th, the United States will impose a 5% Tariff on all goods coming into our Country from Mexico, until such time as illegal migrants coming through Mexico, and into our Country, STOP. The Tariff will gradually increase until the Illegal Immigration problem is remedied, at which time the Tariffs will be removed. Details from the White House to follow.
The tariff on all Mexican goods will rise to 10% on July 1, 20% on Sept. 1 and 25% on Oct. 1, Trump said in a statement released by the White House.
The move comes hours after the Trump administration began a formal push for Congress to ratify the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA, the revision to the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA. Just days ago, Trump lifted steel tariffs on Canada and Mexico to smooth passage for USMCA.
So a six-time bankrupt, self-proclaimed "stable genius", and proven draft-dodging liar, who hides his college transcripts and tax returns from the American people, and who cozies up to Dictators and Tyrants, and has not been exonerated from more than ten obstructions of justice charges, is now controlling the global economy?
Thanks to this stupid fucking asshole all the vegetables I buy that are from Mexico will cost 25% more.
Another problem: Mexico will make American businesses suffer from their tariffs.
Trump doesn't care because he's a fucking moron. The worst president and most retarded president in American history. Drop dead Trump you fucking asshole.
Trump announces tariffs on all Mexico goods in latest anti-immigration measure
The president also took aim at his Democratic opponents, accusing them of a "total dereliction of duty" over border security.
The Democrat-controlled House of Representatives is taking legal action to halt the Trump administration's efforts to build a border wall, saying it would be a waste of funds and would not stop illegal immigration.
Mexico is known for agricultural products like avocados and tequila, but the country is also a major manufacturing hub and home to many US companies.
The country produces hundreds of thousands of cars every month, and is also home to technology and aerospace companies. It is one of the G20 economies.
US firms Ford, General Motors, John Deere, IBM and Coca Cola all operate in Mexico, as well as thousands of other multinationals.
The president has used tariffs elsewhere in a bid to force through his foreign policy objectives.
After complaining for years about the US trade deficit with China, Mr Trump has imposed tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars worth of goods coming from the country.