Find out what's going on in our area and around the World from an
"energy" perspective!
Do give a charitable, tax deductible donation please
go to:
Donation Page
YOU CAN HAVE THE
ENERGY
NEWS DELIVERED TO
YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS!! EXPECT DELIVERY AT LEAST ONCE WEEKLY - MORE OFTEN
AS NEWS CONTENT DEMANDS.
If you'd like an email on your inbox every week on matters of ENERGY,
email us at:
subscribe@arizonaenergy.org making sure your email address is the
one you'd want your delivery to. Of course, there is NO CHARGE for
this service. AND WE NEVER USE PERSONAL INFORMATION FOR ANY THING OTHER
THAN TO DELIVER YOU YOUR NEWS!!
June
-
Please scroll to bottom for previous
months or years.
Footnote: We always attempt
to get the news to you AND obey copyright laws. We apologize
if, in our haste to get the news out, we miss a notice that it
was copyright protected. We are a non-profit foundation
therefore we do not reprint for profit. Our sole motivation is
to keep our public informed. If you have an article reprinted
here and desire us to eliminate it, just let us know and we will
immediately delete it, without question, with apologies.
arizonaenergy on copyright lawFAIR USE NOTICE
ALSO, SEE BELOW FOR SPECIFIC QUOTE FROM COPYRIGHT LAW.
The disease, which once
killed millions of people in
Europe during the Middle
Ages, can now be treated
with antibiotics, according
to the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention.
Though without proper
treatment, the disease can
still cause serious illness
and death.
On Tuesday, in its
first-ever mandated
statistical report on
California’s aid-in-dying
law, the state Department of
Public Health cataloged
illnesses, ages and other
data, but it began with a
total: 111 terminally ill
adults took
doctor-prescribed drugs last
year to end their lives.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg
said his online juggernaut —
which just crossed the
threshold of 2 billion users
— can offer a “sense of
purpose” and “community” in
the face of declining
membership in churches and
other groups.
There’s another solar trade
war brewing and if the U.S.
solar manufacturing
companies that have brought
it to the forefront are
successful, it’s estimated
that up to $.78 per watt
could be added to solar
panel costs in the United
States.
China may be the world's
biggest polluter, but the
country is certainly taking
commendable steps towards a
cleaner energy future. The
latest example is a trial
conducted in the country's
northwest, which saw the
Qinghai Province run on 100
percent renewable energy for
seven days straight.
Clinton Foundation officials
created lifetime “Category
A” positions for the former
first family on the
controversial non-profit’s
board of directors in
November 2013 that appear to
violate IRS regulations
barring individuals from
using tax-exempt groups for
their private benefit,
according to documents
reviewed by The Daily Caller
News Foundation’s
Investigative Group.
Since the 1970s, farm
policies have
overwhelmingly favored
the consolidation and
industrialization of
agriculture and the food
supply
Federal farm subsidies,
tax credits, crop
insurance, price
supports and disaster
payments favor
industrial agriculture
and the streamlined
production of cheap food
While the transition to
industrialized
agriculture has
succeeded in providing
inexpensive food, it has
failed in virtually
every other measurable
parameter
Wind power has been around
for hundreds of
years—initially as wind
mills to pump water and more
recently as
electric-power-producing
wind turbines. The most
dramatic and obvious change
in wind power has been in
the size and shape of the
blades. We are all familiar
with the classic Dutch
windmills that had wide,
flat blades. The current
generation of wind mills
with slender, narrow blades
is a common site across
North America.
Google has been fined 2.42bn
euros ($2.7bn; £2.1bn) by
the European Commission
after it ruled the company
had abused its power by
promoting its own shopping
comparison service at the
top of search results.
The amount is the
regulator's largest penalty
to date against a company
accused of distorting the
market.
The No Sanctuary for
Criminals Act clarifies the
definition of a sanctuary
jurisdiction, imposes
penalties on jurisdictions
that fail to cooperate with
federal enforcement efforts,
and provides immunity for
local police who assist with
the enforcement of federal
immigration laws by honoring
ICE detainers.
Average reported stress
levels increased over
the last two years in
the U.S., with money,
work, family
responsibilities and
personal health concerns
rounding out the top
sources of significant
stress
The relaxation response
is the counterpart of
the stress response; a
physical state of deep
rest that changes
physical and emotional
responses to stress and
may, in fact, counter
stress’ harmful effects
Relaxation techniques
like meditation,
breathing exercises and
guided imagery help
activate your body’s
built-in relaxation
response
Water is way weirder than
you might think. We know it
can exist as a solid, liquid
and gas, but put it under
extreme pressure and it
converts into a freaky
fourth state called
tunneling, and it may even
freeze at temperatures it
would normally boil. But
now, researchers have found
that water actually has two
different liquid forms, and
its weirdness may come from
the relationship between
those forms.
Physicists from the
University of
Nebraska-Lincoln have
created the brightest light
ever produced on Earth, and
it could be the first step
towards more powerful X-ray
technology. The researchers
focused their Diocles Laser
to a brightness a billion
times that of the surface of
the Sun, and found that at
that extreme level, the
fundamental physics of how
light enables vision begin
to change.
Democrats for months have
been talking about alleged
collusion between President
Donald Trump’s campaign and
the Russian government with
meager evidence to support
their claims. But
conservative radio host Mark
Levin says Democrats should
now celebrate because real
evidence of a “new Russian
collusion story” has
surfaced.
However, instead of
proving the Democratic
narrative that the Trump
campaign colluded with
Russia, Levin said on Fox
News Monday that evidence
has been unearthed to prove
that former President Barack
Obama colluded with U.S.
intelligence agencies to
suppress proof of Russian
interference in last year’s
election.
Even the most basic sentence
is loaded with more
information than you might
realize: each word
represents a new concept,
and their placement and
relationship to each other
can drastically change the
meaning of the whole. The
CMU team found that the
"building blocks" the mind
uses to construct thoughts
are made up of concepts,
rather than being based on
words themselves. That
suggests the brain processes
concepts in a universal way,
regardless of a person's
language and culture.
A senior radiation
protection technician at the
closed
Vermont Yankee
nuclear power plant
deliberately falsified
safety records and failed to
check workers for radiation
exposure for eight months
last year, according to the
Nuclear Regulatory
Commission.
It's no wonder Putin thought
he could meddle in the U.S.
He had gotten away with
everything else he
tried...Obama was the
commander-in-chief when
Moscow hatched this
operation. It was his duty
to defend our election.
One in 5 American deaths
is associated with
obesity and more than 5
in 10 Americans struggle
with chronic illness. As
of 2014, the obesity
rate among adults over
the age of 20 was just
shy of 38 percent
Since 1980, childhood
obesity rates have
tripled in the U.S., the
rate of obese teens has
quadrupled from 5 to
20.5 percent and nearly
9 percent of 2- to
5-year-olds are now
obese
The global obesity rate
among adults is now
estimated to be 1 in 10,
or 1 in 12, depending on
the source. When you
factor in those who are
overweight but not
obese, 3 in 10 are
affected
The buildup of dust and
grime on solar panels do
their efficiencies no good,
indeed we've seen some
creative maintenance
solutions such as using
autonomous drones to brush
them off. But what role does
manmade pollution play in
this, including the
particles that hang in the
air? A new study has found
that this is taking a
sizable chunk out of the
world's solar energy
production, with big
investors such as India and
China being hit the hardest.
A survivalist makes plans
for a widespread apocalypse
including societal,
governmental and economic
collapse. .. The prepper
knows that someday the
lights may go out and he
will be required to get by
on what he has on hand.
A new ransomware outbreak is
causing mayhem around the
world, compromising banks,
airports, energy suppliers,
and even shutting down
automated radiation sensors
at the Chernobyl nuclear
power plant. Reminiscent of
the recent WannaCry attack
that affected thousands of
organizations just a few
weeks ago, initial reports
are claiming this new virus
is more sophisticated and
potentially harder to stop.
Earlier this month BP
released its Statistical
Review of World Energy
2017. Overall world primary
energy consumption hit a new
record, increasing by 171
million metric tons of oil
equivalent (MTOE) from 2015
to 2016. The largest share
of that increase came from
new oil consumption, which
accounted for 77 MTOE of the
increase. Natural gas took
the second biggest share
with 57 MTOE of new
consumption.
Solar activity is expected
to be very low with a slight
chance for a C-class flare
on days one, two, and three
(30 Jun, 01 Jul, 02 Jul).
The geomagnetic field is
expected to be at quiet
levels on days one and two
(30 Jun, 01 Jul) and quiet
to active levels on day
three (02 Jul).
Sanderson Farms refuses
to stop using
antibiotics and claims
the antibiotic-free
chicken trend is nothing
but a marketing ploy
devised to justify
higher prices
Other poultry producers,
including Perdue, have
committed to eliminating
or reducing the use of
antibiotics
Merck, which produces a
pesticide called Slice
used to kill sea lice in
farmed fish, was
involved in a cover up
of a study that found
the chemical was harming
crustaceans
Senate Judiciary Committee
leaders have sent letters to
former Attorney General
Loretta Lynch and others
asking for information about
allegations of political
interference in the FBI’s
investigation into former
Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton’s use of a private
email server.
In early June, a South
Korean resident stumbled
upon a crashed drone in a
remote forest in Inje
County. Officials say the
drone is a North Korean spy
military drone purposed with
photographing U.S.
anti-missile defense systems
in South Korea.
Contrary to popular opinion,
the fight over the fate of
the Dakota Access Pipeline
(DAPL) is not over. In
reality, it is just
beginning. Oil will continue
to flow while environmental
justice issues are resolved.
Teachers across the
country are moving to the
head of the class when it
comes to learning how to use
a gun.
With mass shootings
seemingly becoming common
place in classrooms across
the country, teachers are
learning how fire grade-A
shots and starting to carry
weapons in class. It’s an
attempt to better protect
their students and prevent
the next Sandy Hook
Elementary School or
Columbine High School
shooting.
For years, energy and
utility organizations have
been high-profile targets
for hackers, cyberterrorists
and foreign governments.
Infrastructure organizations
are seen as vulnerable
targets that can be used to
cause mass disruption with a
relatively few keystrokes
pressed from a home located
a few blocks away or from a
foreign nation on the other
side of the world.
Because attacks on the
energy and utility sector
are often kept
confidential—unlike data
breaches suffered by
retailers and healthcare
organizations that are
highly publicized to warn
customers and patients whose
information has been
stolen—the public has little
knowledge of infrastructure
attacks...
Pennsylvania'sThree
Mile Island
nuclear plant have formally
notified regulators and a
regional power grid operator
of their previously
announced intentions to
close the plant.
In recent years, an
increasing number of urban,
middle-class Chinese young
people have begun to
identify with sang
culture. Simply put,
sang refers to a
reduced work ethic, a lack
of self-motivation, and an
apathetic demeanor. “I’m
just a waste of space,” “I
don’t care all that much for
life,” and “I’m listless to
the point of despair” are
typical phrases uttered by
sang youths.
A student from James Madison
University in Harrisonburg,
Virginia, will spend at
least 100 days in prison
after admitting to
registering deceased voters
for Democrats during the
2016 presidential election.
A new and revised version
of the troubled Senate
healthcare bill may be
shipped off to the
Congressional Budget Office
(CBO) for review this week,
The Washington Post reports.
Capitol Hill aides and
lobbyists told the newspaper
that Senate Majority Leader
Mitch McConnell is pushing
to get a reworked bill to
the CBO by Friday.
Apple Inc., which issued
the biggest green bond ever
sold by a U.S. corporation
last year to finance
projects fighting global
warming, is doing it again.
On Tuesday, the iPhone
maker issued a $1 billion
green bond to fund renewable
energy generation. It builds
on $1.5 billion worth of
bonds the Cupertino,
California-based company
sold a year ago to further
its goal of running 100
percent of its operations on
renewable energy.
Four Arab states that
imposed a boycott on Qatar
have issued an ultimatum to
Doha to close Al Jazeera
television, curb ties with
Iran, shut a Turkish base
and pay reparations, demands
so far reaching it would
appear to be hard for Doha
to comply.
Saudi Arabia,
Egypt, Bahrain and the
United Arab Emirates have
sent a 13-point list of
demands apparently aimed at
dismantling their tiny but
wealthy neighbour's two
decade-old interventionist
foreign policy which has
incensed them.
Thirty-four of the
biggest U.S. banks have the
financial strength to
survive the next global
recession, the Federal
Reserve said on Thursday.
The results were the
first of two rounds of
annual stress tests
conducted by the central
bank to assess how well
financial institutions with
$50 billion or more in
consolidated assets could
cope with shocks to
financial markets and the
economy. The most severe
hypothetical scenario
assumes $383 billion in loan
losses at the firms over
nine quarters amid a
“severe” global recession, a
10% unemployment rate in the
U.S. and stress in the
corporate loan market and
commercial real estate.
Saudi security forces on
Friday foiled a suicide
attack on the Grand Mosque
in the Muslim holy city of
Mecca, cornering the
would-be attacker in an
apartment, where he blew
himself up, the Interior
Ministry said.
An ESA-funded scientist is
developing a magnetic space
tug to combat the growing
problem of space debris. The
tugs could lock onto
derelict satellites and
deorbit them before they
become a hazard to
navigation, and because they
use cryogenic magnets, they
wouldn't have to even touch
the derelicts and the
targets wouldn't need to be
specially modified for
towing.
Weeks after an adjunct
professor was suspended in
the wake of a raucous
appearance on a Fox News
television show, the
college's president is
speaking out about the
school's decision to fire
her.
Rigorous, four-year
coming-of-age process brings
Mohawk Akwesasne youth to
adulthood
Ohero:kon is not an easy
process. It’s a four-year
commitment during which
nieces and nephews will
gather every Sunday in the
longhouse for 20 weeks
throughout the winter months
to prepare themselves for
adulthood.
On Wednesday the San
Francisco Superior Court
tossed for lack of evidence
14 of 15 criminal charges
against journalists who
recorded high-level Planned
Parenthood employees
discussing trafficking the
body parts of aborted
babies, reports
LifeSiteNews. California’s
Department of Justice says
it will re-file the charges
within the ten-day deadline
for providing more evidence.
Anyone who has seen The
Day After Tomorrow will
be familiar with the concept
of "tipping points" where
slow and gradual changes in
atmospheric CO2 levels can
reach a point that triggers
a sudden change in
temperatures. While a lot of
the aforementioned movie
remains firmly in the realm
of science fiction, a new
study has found evidence of
such tipping points
occurring in the past,
resulting in dramatic
climate changes over a short
period.
A Virginia man arrested
Thursday for passing top
secret defense information
to Chinese intelligence
agents in Shanghai faces a
possible sentence of life in
prison, the Justice
Department said.
“Twenty years ago, this
was all going to waste,”
Bansal said in an interview
last week in Melbourne. The
gas was getting “flared up
in the environment, now it’s
creating electricity,” he
said.
Australia is
the eighth-largest
per-capita producer of
municipal waste among
developed economies,
according to the
Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development.
A report last year by
the Australian Council of
Recycling showed the nation
recycled just 41 percent of
that waste, compared with
Germany on 65 percent.
If you’re familiar with the
American war on drugs, then
it may not surprise you to
learn that the CIA
represents one of the
largest drug dealing
organizations in history.
The CIA originally designed
LSD with the help of a Swiss
manufacturer as a “mind
control drug” as part of
their MK Ultra program,
hoping that it would allow
patients under the influence
to commit unspeakable acts
commanded by the government
and then forget they ever
happened. Of course, this
plan backfired, and then the
CIA introduced LSD to the
American population.
The editorial cited a
study by Just Facts
Daily, a
libertarian think tank. A
Harvard/you.Gov poll had as
many as 5.7 million
non-citizens saying they had
cast votes in former
President Barack Obama's
first election, and that
number was 3.6 million in
2012.
With 21 million American
adults in the 2016 Census –
up from 19.4 million in
2008, the start of the Obama
administration – "it is
therefore highly likely that
millions of non-citizens
cast votes in 2016,"
according to the study.
Phillip possibly violated
one of Twitter’s policies,
prohibiting people from
publishing someone’s
personal information,
including “addresses or
locations that are
considered and treated as
private.”
Sometimes you run across a
grimy, tattered dollar bill
that seems like it’s been
around since the beginning
of time. Assuredly it
hasn’t, but the history of
human beings using cash
currency does go back a long
time – 40,000 years.
New orders for
key U.S.-made capital goods
unexpectedly fell in May and
shipments also declined,
suggesting a loss of
momentum in the
manufacturing sector halfway
through the second quarter.
The Commerce
Department said on Monday
that non-defense capital
goods orders excluding
aircraft, a closely watched
proxy for business spending
plans, dropped 0.2 percent,
the largest decline since
December.
The owners of a coal-fired
power plant in northern
Arizona have rejected the
Navajo Nation's request for
a 30-day extension of a July
1 deadline for the tribe to
decide whether to extend the
owners' lease for the site.
It may be too soon to write
OPEC's obituary, but the oil
producer club appears in
urgent need of late-life
care. It shows little
understanding of where it
is, how it got there or
where it's going. While it
still manages to collect new
members here and there, its
core group looks more
fragile than at any point in
nearly 30 years.
Solar activity is expected
to be very low with a slight
chance for a C-class flare
on days one, two, and three
(27 Jun, 28 Jun, 29 Jun).
The geomagnetic field is
expected to be at quiet
levels on days one and two
(27 Jun, 28 Jun) and quiet
to unsettled levels on day
three (29 Jun).
Sen. Jeff Flake, a
member of the Senate
Judiciary Committee, sent a
letter to U.S. Attorney
General Jeff Sessions urging
that he restore Operation
Steamline’s zero tolerance
approach to illegal border
crossings and reverse the
previous administration’s
attempts to undermine the
program. Operation
Streamline had previously
been credited with enhancing
border security along parts
of Arizona’s border with
Mexico.
In a victory for the Trump
administration, the Supreme
Court on Monday lifted key
components of an injunction
against President Trump’s
proposed ban on travel from
six majority-Muslim nations,
reinstating much of the
policy and promising to hear
full arguments as early as
this fall.
“But with respect to future
debt; would it not be wise
and just for that nation to
declare in the constitution
they are forming that
neither the legislature, nor
the nation itself can
validly contract more debt,
than they may pay within
their own age, or within the
term of 19 years.” – Thomas
Jefferson
US lawmakers
have drafted legislation
proposing the formation
of a new branch of the
military called the
Space Corps. This new
space-orientated
military service would
join the five other
branches of the United
States Armed Forces and
is intended to manage
national security in
space.
“What I found out, Erin,”
Gowdy said, “is that about
eight hours ago Adam Schiff
and I look at Dan Coates in
the eye and we assured him
that there would be no
selective leaking of his
testimony to us.”
“And I’ll be damned if
eight hours later,” he said
angrily, “there aren’t three
different leaks with what he
told us.”
President Donald Trump
said this morning that his
predecessor Barack Obama
“colluded or obstructed” in
regards to Russian
interference in the U.S.
election.
“The reason that
President Obama did NOTHING
about Russia after being
notified by the CIA of
meddling is that he expected
Clinton would win and did
not want to ‘rock the boat.’
He didn’t ‘choke,’ he
colluded or obstructed, and
it did the Dems and Crooked
Hillary no good,” Trump
wrote in two tweets.
President Trump called fora
new law barring immigrants
from receiving welfare for
at least five years at a
rally on Wednesday. But
neither Trump nor nearly
6,000 of his die-hard
supporters seemed to realize
that the law has already
existed for more than 20
years.
Trump told Fox News
contributor Pete Hegseth in
an interview set to air
Sunday he "just heard today
for the first time" former
President Barack Obama "knew
about Russia a long time
before the election, and he
did nothing about it."
He says Obama "should
have done something about
it.
Prime Minister Theresa May
struck a deal on Monday to
prop up her minority
government by agreeing to at
least 1 billion pounds ($1.3
billion) in extra funding
for Northern Ireland in
return for the support of
the province's biggest
Protestant party.
An American attempt to gauge
the military's ability to
shoot down medium- and
intermediate-range ballistic
missiles and counter
potential threats from North
Korea failed Wednesday
night, according to the U.S.
Missile Defense Agency and
the Japan Ministry of
Defense.
At approximately 7:20 p.m
local time, a medium-range
ballistic target missile was
launched from the Pacific
Missile Range Facility at
Kauai, Hawaii and was
tracked by the USS John Paul
Jones. The ship launched a
SM-3 guided missile, which
failed to intercept the
target, the agencies said in
a statement.
Western technology
companies, including Cisco,
IBM and SAP, are acceding to
demands by Moscow for access
to closely guarded product
security secrets, at a time
when Russia has been accused
of a growing number of cyber
attacks on the West, a
Reuters investigation has
found.
The warning comes after an
investigation by Which? and
ethical hackers at SureCloud
who found they could
infiltrate Super Hub 2 and
use it to access to other
household connected devices
including children's toys,
internet connected IP
cameras, smartlocks and
more. Even Amazon Echo was
found to have a
vulnerability with regards
to voice ordering, but it
was hard to crack.
During the period of large
power plant construction in
the last century, fresh
water was plentiful and was
typically the choice for
plant makeup. Once-through
condensers were common, with
a river or fresh-water
lake/reservoir as the
source. Now, however,...
The CIA designed LSD with a
Swiss manufacturer as part
of the MK Ultra program in
hopes that they could force
people to take it and
convince them to do
unspeakable acts, all of
which they’d forget the
following morning, once the
drugs wore off. Testing
started with unwilling
participants being lured
into a hotel room by
prostitutes, who would then
slip the drugs into their
drinks. A CIA agent would
then watch the test subjects
as they tripped out behind a
wall of the hotel room.
Thanks to Colorado’s
concealed carry laws, some
Colorado teachers are taking
part in a training course
that will allow them to
carry firearms into the
classroom to protect
students...
Military aircraft bombed
rebel positions and ground
troops launched a renewed
push against Islamic State
(IS)-inspired terrorists
holed up in this city on
Tuesday, and a military
spokesperson said the aim
was to wrap up the fighting
as soon as possible...
Fighting in Marawi has
entered a fifth week, and
nearly 350 people have been
killed, according to the
military count.
The 193 Member States of the
United Nations agreed by
consensus to a 14 point Call
for Action that will begin
the reversal of the decline
of the ocean’s health at the
conclusion of the first-ever
United Nations Oceans
Conference. The week-long
conference, which closed
Friday, addressed key topics
for our common future with
the oceans.
US President Donald Trump
Wednesday night broadly
outlined his
administration's energy
policy in a speech that
touched on oil pipelines,
ethanol production and the
Paris climate accord.
Here's a fact-check of
some of Trump's
energy-related quotes:
The court said it the
officials could not be held
responsible for abuses
against Muslim immigrants
and others.
The US Supreme Court ruled
Monday that senior officials
from president George W
Bush’s administration cannot
be held responsible for
abuses against Muslim
immigrants and others held
in the frantic response to
the September 11, 2001
attacks.
Breatharianism is a
controversial topic, mainly
because it calls into
question virtually
everything we have been
taught to believe about what
it takes to stay alive. We
need food, we need
nutrients, and we need water
to survive — don’t we?
According to breathariansim,
we don’t, and the Universe
can provide us with all the
energy we need to sustain
ourselves through the
breath.
Democrats scrambled to
regroup on Wednesday after a
disappointing special
election defeat in Georgia,
with lawmakers, activists
and labor leaders speaking
out in public and private to
demand a more forceful
economic message heading
into the 2018 elections.
Military and industry
officials appear to have
known about the dangers of
firefighting foams a decade
before it came to light that
perfluorinated compounds
(PFCs) in these foams had
contaminated water supplies
across the country.
The recently elected French
president said Wednesday he
is looking to drastically
change his country's course
on Syria and will no longer
seek the removal of the
war-torn country's leader.
The move comes as tensions
between the U.S. and Russia
escalate over Syria's
future.
Hillary Clinton has
repeatedly managed to escape
from the arms of the law,
but it appears that this
time the former Democratic
presidential nominee may be
brought to justice,
according to Wall Street
analyst Charles Ortel, and
it’s not the Clinton email
case or her “pay-to-play”
scheme.
The U.S. House Ways and
Means Committee approved a
bill with bipartisan support
that would extend the
lifetime of a nuclear power
production tax credit.
Currently, nuclear
facilities need to enter
into service by 2020 to be
eligible for the credit. The
legislation would remove
that deadline and allow
public and nonprofit
entities to transfer credits
to other stakeholders on
nuclear projects, such as
designers, The Hill
reported.
Democratic candidate Jon
Ossoff lost the Georgia
special election Tuesday
despite the fact that his
campaign received
unprecedented funding from
the deeply liberal state of
California.
The young Democrat
received 8.9 times as many
many donors from California
than from any other state in
the union, including all of
the totals from Georgia
itself.
Shortly after quitting a
certain testosterone
injection and switching to a
less potent form, Raines
experienced a cycle for the
first time since
transitioning from female to
male five years ago.
It may be frustrating,
but forgetting things plays
an important part in memory
...
"It's important that the
brain forgets irrelevant
details and instead focuses
on the stuff that's going to
help make decisions in the
real world," says Blake
Richards, one of the paper's
authors. "If you're trying
to navigate the world and
your brain is constantly
bringing up multiple
conflicting memories, that
makes it harder for you to
make an informed decision."
A sinister portrait of
Russia's cyberattacks on the
U.S. emerged Wednesday as
current and former U.S.
officials told Congress
Moscow stockpiled stolen
information and selectively
disseminated it during the
2016 presidential campaign
to undermine the American
political process.
Michigan Attorney General
Bill Schuette announced last
week that he has charged
five public officials with
involuntary manslaughter
related to their alleged
failure to act in the Flint
water crisis. The charge is
punishable by up to 15 years
in prison.
A study by Bloomberg New
Energy Finance indicates 34
of the 61 nuclear plants
operating in the United
States are losing money.
Though nuclear plants
receive between $20 and $30
per MW/h of electricity, it
costs them an average of $35
per MW/h to run. The report
noted nearly all the
reactors owned by Exelon,
Entergy and FirstEnergy are
operating at losses.
The facility cost $60
million to build and
employed nearly 250 during
its six-month construction.
The site was constructed on
land held by the Kayenta
Chapter of the Navajo
nation.
Former Homeland Security
Secretary Jeh Johnson
testified Wednesday that the
Democratic National
Committee last year turned
down his agency’s offer to
help protect its network
despite being warned about a
hack.
He also confirmed that
while Russia, at the
direction of President
Vladimir Putin, orchestrated
cyberattacks on the United
States to influence the 2016
presidential election,
Moscow was unable to
actually alter ballots.
In what is proving to be an
incredible new discovery,
mummies dating back 1800 –
1900 years old from Nazca,
Peru are shedding light on
what our true origins may
look like – or even simply
re-writing what we thought
was earth’s true history.
Due to the verified age of
these specimens, we do know
we are not dealing with
fakes or a hoax here, it is
important to get that fact
out of the way quite
quickly.
2017 World Peace and Prayer
Day statement by the Keeper
of the Sacred White Buffalo
Calf Bundle...
Today, World Peace and
Prayer Day is at Mauna a
Wakea (Mountain of Sky
Father), also known as Mauna
Kea, in Hawaii. Many First
Nations Indigenous Peoples
are gathering here to pray
and make spiritual offerings
for all life on Mother
Earth. Also, people from all
directions and all Nations
across Turtle Island will be
praying in unification with
us today.
President Donald Trump
speaks at a rally in Cedar
Rapids, Iowa, when
protesters tried to
interrupt his speech. But
his many supporters
responded with an
overpowering chant of "USA!
USA!," drowning out the
protesters' cries.
A functional fusion reactor
may still be a dream, but
it's a dream that is slowly
becoming a reality with
numerous research efforts
and experiments aiming to
unlock the near unlimited
supply of clean energy that
such a reactor would
provide. The challenges
scientists face in getting
nuclear fusion to work are
undeniably difficult, but
not insurmountable, and two
young physicists have
recently solved one of the
major problems engineers
have been grappling with for
almost half a century.
Singapore’s fifth wastewater
reclamation plant has been
opened, which together with
four existing facilities
means NEWater can now meet
40% of Singapore’s total
daily water demand.
Solar activity is expected
to be very low with a slight
chance for a C-class flare
on days one, two, and three
(23 Jun, 24 Jun, 25 Jun).
The geomagnetic field is
expected to be at quiet to
active levels on days one
and two (23 Jun, 24 Jun) and
quiet to unsettled levels on
day three (25 Jun).
Comprehensive records
tracking changes in all 43
greenhouse gases that
contribute to human-induced
climate change back 2,000
years are now available to
the public as a result of
research conducted by an
international team of
scientists.
A total of 14 American
cities, with the list
growing, are posting on
their websites information
and data on climate change
scrubbed from the U.S.
Environmental Protection
Agency website after the
Trump administration took
office.
The hundred-plus security
experts say many US states
are "inadequately prepared"
to deal with the rising
cybersecurity risks of state
and federal elections.
Former presidential
candidate Hillary Clinton
just got very bad, yet
familiar, news from the
State Department — she’s
under federal investigation
again. The probe centers
on the well-known
accusations that Clinton and
her staff mishandled
classified information.
The department’s
investigation aims to
determine whether Clinton
and her closest aides
violated government
protocols by using her
private server to receive,
hold and transmit classified
and top-secret government
documents. The department
declined to say when its
inquiry began, but it
follows the conclusion of
the FBI’s probe into the
matter, which did not result
in any actions being taken
against Clinton or any of
her aides.
Since the federal government
last raised the gasoline tax
at the start of the Clinton
administration to 18.4 cents
per gallon, 39 states have
hiked their at-the-pump fees
-- sometimes more than once
-- to cover the costs of
road construction and
maintenance.
So far this
year, lawmakers in five
states have approved
additional gas taxes and
others are likely to follow
in the years ahead.
Those of fiendish or
mischievous mind will have
an easier time registering
trademarks after the Supreme
Court on Monday decided to
reject as unconstitutional a
rule against disparaging
ones. The high court's
decision, authored by
justice Samuel Alito, holds
that a Lanham Act provision
against such offensive
trademarks is
facially invalid under the
First Amendment.
Tesla Inc. has signed a
preliminary agreement with
the city of Shanghai to
explore production in China,
moving the electric-car
maker a step closer to
lowering its manufacturing
and shipping costs,
according to people familiar
with the matter.
“Global owns and operates 10
utility companies in and
around metro Phoenix,
recycling nearly 1 billion
gallons of water annually.
This acquisition is Global’s
first since going public in
2003. Fleming said the
company plans more,” the
report said.
Solstice 2017 – longest day
for us on northern Earth –
has passed. But the hottest
weather for the
Northern Hemisphere is still
to come. The reason is
called the lag of the
seasons.
The 1.3 million-acre
Bears Ears National Monument
designated by President
Barack Obama last December
in Utah should be
“right-sized,” Secretary of
the Interior Ryan Zinke has
recommended to President
Donald Trump.
Bears Ears National
Monument in southeastern
Utah protects one of most
significant cultural
landscapes in the United
States, with thousands of
archaeological sites,
ancient rock art and cliff
dwellings, as well as
ceremonial kivas surrounded
by sandstone canyons,
desert mesas, forested
highlands and the monument’s
namesake twin buttes. These
lands are sacred to many
Native American tribes.
Personal data on 198 million
voters, including analytics
data that suggests who a
person is likely to vote for
and why, was stored on an
unsecured Amazon server.
.This was not a glancing
blow, a sideswipe of two
ships passing in the night.
It was a direct, frontal,
perpendicular hit of the
Crystal against the
mid-right side (starboard)
of the Fitzgerald.
Anthony Puzder,
the former chief executive
of CKE Restaurants who was
President Donald Trump’s
first pick for U.S. labor
secretary, said the new
administration is having
many positive effects on the
economy.
The most
important indicator is the
rise in household income,
which gained more in the
first three months of the
Trump presidency than during
the entire seven and a half
years of the Obama recovery.
Median household income has
surged $1,300 since the
beginning of the year to
$59,361, compared with a
$1,000 gain during the Obama
years.
So toilet paper might
seem like the better option
if you want to conserve
water, right?
Not so fast,
cautions Scientific
American, because you’re not
accounting for the water and
chemicals used to
manufacture toilet tissue.
Even recycled, minimally
processed tissue eats up a
lot of resources. And over a
lifetime, you’ll pay more
for toilet paper than you
will for a bidet — even a
top-of-the-line model.
In the United States, we
use up to 15 million trees,
473,587,500,000 gallons of
water, 253 tons of chlorine
and 17.3 terawatts of
electricity to meet our
annual demand for toilet
paper ...
...The green star was
actually a laser, beamed
from a satellite orbiting
over 300 miles overhead,
like a lighthouse beacon
advertising the spacecraft’s
location. The laser dot was
streaking across the sky,
and would disappear beyond
the horizon in just 10
minutes. So the team, made
up of researchers from
multiple science
institutions in China,
locked their telescope onto
the green laser in search of
the real prize within:
delicate, single infrared
photons produced by a
special crystal on the
satellite. Filtering out the
green light, they latched on
to their quarry, a quantum
signal the likes of which
has never been sent.
The Standing Rock Sioux
Tribe won a significant
victory today in its fight
to protect the Tribe’s
drinking water and ancestral
lands from the Dakota Access
pipeline.
A federal judge ruled
that the federal permits
authorizing the pipeline to
cross the Missouri River
just upstream of the
Standing Rock reservation,
which were hastily issued by
the Trump administration
just days after the
inauguration, violated the
law in certain critical
respects.
Seventy-four percent of the
world’s population will be
exposed to deadly heatwaves
by 2100 if carbon gas
emissions continue to rise
at current rates, according
to a study published
in Nature Climate Change.
Even if emissions are
aggressively reduced, the
percent of the world’s human
population affected is
expected to reach 48
percent.
We leave a poisoned gift to
a humanity of the future of
which we know nothing.
Neither their language,
whether they are hordes in
rags armed with cudgels or a
peaceful technological
civilization in the apogee,
knowing how to recycle this
radioactive waste …
“A president does not have
the authority to rescind a
national monument,” Marcario
said in a statement the day
after Trump announced his
national monuments order.
“An attempt to change the
boundaries ignores the
review process of cultural
and historical
characteristics and the
public input.”
A federally funded research
effort to revolutionize
water treatment has yielded
an off-grid technology that
uses energy from sunlight
alone to turn salt water
into fresh drinking water.
The desalination system,
which uses a combination of
membrane distillation
technology and
light-harvesting
nanophotonics, is the first
major innovation from the
Center for Nanotechnology
Enabled Water Treatment
(NEWT), a
multi-institutional
engineering research center
based at Rice University
A federal appeals court
agreed with two tribes who
challenged a Freeport
Minerals plan to divert
water from the Gila River,
saying the company had
failed to show that its
proposal would not affect
the tribes.
In a backyard vegetable
garden at a Burlington
middle school, students made
sure to plant flowers like
deep pink sweet william, a
bushy sage plant with purple
blossoms and zinnias, and
marigolds that will bloom
this summer.
They've also left a section
unplanted where grass and
wildflowers can grow
unmowed, in an effort to
help bees and other
pollinators that have been
sharply declining in
population.
A sound wave is a transfer
of energy as it travels away
from a vibrating source.
Sound waves are formed when
a vibrating object causes
the surrounding medium to
vibrate. A medium is a
material (solid, liquid or
gas) which a wave travels
through.
A new report by
right-leaning outlet Mediate
says former Fox News star
Bill O’Reilly is
significantly expanding his
website Billoreilly.com,
adding several journalists
and at least one producer to
help turn the site into “a
major enterprise.”
“It needed to be said,”
Homan explained. “And by me
saying you should be
worried, you should be
afraid — if you lie on your
taxes, you’ve got to be
worried, ‘Is the IRS going
to audit me?’ … When you
speed down the highway,
you’ve got to worry, ‘Am I
going to get a speeding
ticket?’ You worry. It’s
natural human behavior.”
But he also explained
that he had seen many
terrible horrors as the
result of lax immigration
enforcement, and by
enforcing the law in a
strict manner, those evils
could be prevented.
The firing of the missiles,
the first in 30 years
outside Iran's own
territory, came hours after
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei, in a statement on
his website, vowed Iran
would "slap its enemies" in
honour of the victims'
families, including those
killed in Syria and Iraq.
All too often Republicans
fall into a trap where they
seek to be calm and
reasonable, while allowing
the Left to speak with
passion. The result is an
imbalance in body language,
which can lead the audience
to believe that those with
passion are right, even when
wrong, and those who remain
quiet and reasonable are
wrong, even when right.
One week after slipping
significantly in the
cable-news ratings, the Fox
News Channel is back on top,
trouncing its biggest
competitors throughout the
week.
...in recent weeks, the main
narrative has been that
Trump committed obstruction
of justice when he exercised
his constitutional right to
fire FBI Director James
Comey. Critics argued
Comey’s dismissal amounted
to obstruction because the
FBI was in the midst of
their investigation into
Trump’s campaign.
And it appears that
narrative is resonating with
Americans.[even when facts
show otherwise]
The price of oil could fall
to $30/b next year and stay
at that level for about two
years, according to Fereidun
Fesharaki, chairman of
consultants FGE.
The continent is considered
to be a pristine wilderness
compared to other regions
and was thought to be
relatively free from plastic
pollution. However new
findings by scientists from
University of Hull and
British Antarctic Survey
(BAS) have revealed that
recorded levels of
microplastics are five times
higher than you would expect
to find from local sources
such as research stations
and ships.
Solar activity is expected
to be very low with a slight
chance for a C-class flare
on days one, two, and three
(20 Jun, 21 Jun, 22 Jun).
The geomagnetic field is
expected to be at quiet
levels on days one and two
(20 Jun, 21 Jun) and quiet
to unsettled levels on day
three (22 Jun).
Scientists from the
universities of
Kaiserslautern, Bochum and
Rostock have developed a new
method for producing
biodiesel. The researchers
chemically treated a mixture
of plant oils to generate,
at zero energy cost, a
biofuel that can be added
undiluted in modern diesel
engines. Their trick: Use
bioethylene to cleave the
commercial rapeseed oil
esters. Currently, European
biofuel companies mainly
produce biodiesel from
rapeseed oil and methanol.
The Rodeo-Chediski fire
started as two separate
fires two days apart. The
Rodeo fire started the
afternoon of June 18, 2002,
and the Chediski fire
started the morning of June
20. These human-caused fires
burned together on June 23
to become the largest single
fire in the history of the
Southwest. The final size
was almost 470,000 acres.
If
the report does prove true,
it would be one of the
biggest blows yet to Islamic
State, which is trying to
defend its shrinking
territory against an array
of forces backed by regional
and global powers in both
Syria and Iraq.
During the eclipse,
California companies are
planning on ramping up
production from other power
sources, including
hydroelectricity and natural
gas, and then quickly
reintegrate solar power
afterward, the Washington
Post reported.
After six months of no
evidence on the collusion
front, Former FBI Director
James Comey was to be the
star witness for the
Democrats on the obstruction
front. Instead of being
helpful, Comey confirmed
that there is no evidence of
collusion. Beyond that, he
was such a bad witness,
Comey destroyed any possible
legal case against Trump -
and made himself part of the
investigation in the
process.
He set the stage for a new,
practical common-sense
approach to a better
environment with a better
economy. He also
re-established the sound
principle that an American
President’s first obligation
is to the American people
and the American nation.
Finally, he brilliantly
concluded his analysis with
an emphasis on
renegotiation.
The device was created for
inspection of the primary
containment vessel (PCV) of
Unit 3 of the crippled
plant. Unit 3 was flooded
with coolant to a depth of
about 6 meters (20ft) and in
order to make a proper
clean-up, such a coolant
must be located and mapped,
according to the IRID.
Weekly US coal production
totaled an estimated 15.5
million st in the week that
ended June 10, up 3.6% from
the prior week and up 24.1%
from the year-ago week, US
Energy Information
Administration data showed
Thursday.
It was the
fifth straight week coal
production has increased
after bottoming out in the
week that ended May 6 at
13.33 million st.
Each year, the Global
Footprint Network calculates
the date at which we humans
have used as much biomass as
the Earth/Sun system
produces in a year. In other
words, it’s the date after
which we live
by overdrawing our resource
bank account. This year its
August 2.
Sci-fi may have us worried
about self-aware robots, but
it’s the mindless ones we
need to be cautious of.
Conscious machines may
actually be our allies.
Just when you thought our
Syria policy could not get
any worse, last week it did.
The US military twice
attacked Syrian government
forces from a military base
it illegally occupies inside
Syria. According to the
Pentagon, the attacks on
Syrian government-backed
forces were “defensive”
because the Syrian fighters
were approaching a US
self-declared
“de-confliction” zone inside
Syria. The Syrian forces
were pursuing ISIS in the
area, but the US attacked
anyway.
A new study out of the
University of California Los
Angeles (UCLA) has found
that one part of the neurons
in our brains is more active
than previously revealed.
The finding implies that our
brains are both analog and
digital computers and could
lead to better ways to treat
neurological disorders.
In March, monthly
electricity generation from
wind and solar sources
exceeded 10 percent of all
generation for the first
time, the Energy Information
Administration reported.
On an annual basis, wind
and solar accounted for
seven percent of total
generation in 2016.
No matter how much we
believe we have our “shit”
together, life carries many
harsh truths, and no matter
how much we may wish to run
away from them, it is only
through accepting them that
we can take full
responsibility for our
lives.
Between 1999 and 2014,
the death rate from
Alzheimer’s increased by
55 percent, killing more
than 93,500 Americans in
2014, according to a
review of death
certificates
Research published in
2014 found Alzheimer’s
deaths were severely
underreported on death
certificates.
Researchers estimate the
annual death toll from
Alzheimer’s actually
exceeds half a million
Many lifestyle and
environmental factors
contribute to the rise
in Alzheimer’s,
including inappropriate
diet, inactivity,
insulin resistance,
prion infection, lack of
sun exposure and
overexposure to toxic
chemicals and non-native
electromagnetic fields
Police in Pennsylvania’s
state capital said a member
of the leftist antifa group
— known for assaulting
supporters of Republican
President Donald Trump at
rallies across the country —
was arrested after using a
flagpole with a silver nail
at the top to hit a state
trooper’s horse in the neck
at a demonstration Saturday.
Authorities charged Lisa
Joy Simon, 23, with
aggravated assault to
police, taunting a police
animal, prohibited offensive
weapons, obstruction to law
enforcement function,
resisting arrest, and
disorderly conduct. She was
arraigned and taken to
Dauphin County Prison in
lieu of $100,000 bail,..
After a hot, windy day that
saw several wildfires start
and a handful grow around
the Mogollon Rim and
Arizona, the state forester
said fire crews are “spread
thin.”..
Decades of overgrown forests
and repeated years of
drought have led to
dangerous fire conditions
being the norm.
A rising number of American
billionaires reportedly are
stockpiling land as
"apocalypse insurance," in
the event of an apocalyptic
event, be it a viral
epidemic, nuclear war, or
cataclysmic pole shift.
Ongoing drought – and
increasing temperatures –
have reduced water flow in
the Colorado River, with
more dramatic reductions
expected. This ongoing,
unprecedented event
threatens water supplies in
cities in the U.S. West and
some of the most productive
agricultural lands anywhere
in the world.
Judge James Boasberg’s
91-page decision says U.S.
Army Corps ‘did not
adequately consider’ oil
spill impacts; no ruling on
whether to keep DAPL
operational
"The fact that Mueller is
opening an investigation on
obstruction doesn't answer
the two basic questions. One
— can a president be
indicted while sitting? And
two — can a president be
indicted for obstruction
— which is simply doing his
job, being the head of the
executive branch?"
"I think the answer
to both of these
questions is still going
to be no and no,"
Dershowitz told Newsmax.
One in 4 Americans
reports knowing someone
addicted to opioids, and
driving under the
influence of these and
other drugs has become a
serious problem, now
causing more fatal car
crashes than drunk
driving
Prescription and/or
illegal drugs were
involved in 43 percent
of fatal car crashes in
2015; 37 percent
involved illegal amounts
of alcohol, highlighting
the need for law
enforcement training in
identifying
drug-impaired driving
Drugs metabolize in very
different ways and at
different rates, making
testing using blood,
urine or saliva
challenging — nor can
any single test measure
all the possible drugs a
driver might be on
In
lifting its benchmark
lending rate by a quarter
percentage point to a target
range of 1.00 percent to
1.25 percent and forecasting
one more hike this year, the
Fed seemed to largely brush
off a recent run of mixed
economic data.
Most galaxies are randomly
oriented in space, but the
biggest ones often point
toward their neighbors. A
new study traces these
alignments back into the
early universe.
With temperatures around the
world climbing, melt waters
from the continental ice
sheets of Greenland and
Antarctica are raising sea
levels. Those ice sheets are
melting from both above and
below. Much of the ice lost
from ice sheets comes from a
process called calving where
ice erodes, breaks off, and
flows rapidly into the
ocean. A large volume of ice
is also lost from ice sheets
melting on their surfaces.
The damage inside of the
reactor is so great and the
environment so deadly, that
they still don’t have a
clear idea of what they are
dealing with, which is why
an arbitrary and imaginary
timeline of 3-40 years was
presented to the public.
Hillary Clinton and seven of
her top aides have retained
their State Department
security clearances a year
after the FBI concluded they
were “extremely careless”
handling sensitive
information.
Democrats on a House of
Representatives' Energy and
Commerce subcommittee
Thursday opposed provisions
in nuclear waste legislation
that link interim storage of
utility spent fuel to the US
Department of Energy's
repository program and that
eliminate Nevada's authority
over water rights for that
disposal facility, but vowed
to work with Chairman John
Shimkus,
Republican-Illinois, on
compromise language.
new report from Navigant
Research indicates the
global market for
utility-scale and
customer-sited hybrid energy
storage systems indicates
the total capacity is
expected to grow from 78.6
MW now to 2.1 GW in 2026.
While drug use among teens
in the U.S. has dropped
between 2002 and 2013,
nearly 25 million youth aged
12 and older still use
illicit drugs. Marijuana is
the most common drug of
choice, where in 2013 alone,
7.5 percent of young
Americans over the age of
twelve (almost 20 million)
have used marijuana, a jump
of about 6 percent from
2007. Abuse of other drugs —
including cocaine, heroin,
hallucinogens and
prescription painkillers —
remained unchanged from 2012
to 2013.
NRC Chairwoman Kristine
Svinicki has asked Congress
for $30 million to review
the expected restart of a
license application to store
nuclear waste at Yucca
Mountain in Nevada, the Las
Vegas Review-Journal
reported.
The funds would be part
of the agency’s $952 million
budget request for 2018.
Oil prices dropped to their
lowest settlement in seven
months Wednesday, after U.S.
government data showed a
smaller-than-expected weekly
decline in domestic supplies
and an increase in gasoline
stockpiles and crude
production.
Spring chinook were
journeying up the Columbia
River, returning to their
natal streams to spawn.
Lamprey were returning too,
as Native leaders, elected
officials and environmental
warriors gathered at Mosier
on June 3 to protest against
crude-oil rail shipments
along the great river The
People know as
Nch’i-Wana.
Energy-starved Pakistan
expects no changes in its
long-term LNG supply
agreement with Qatar or its
plans to build a natural gas
pipeline with Iran, despite
geopolitical uncertainties.
Russian President
Vladimir Putin on Thursday
offered to give political
asylum to former FBI
Director James Comey, poking
at tensions between Comey
and President Trump.
“If Comey will be under
the threat of political
persecution, we are ready to
accept him here,” Putin said
at a press conference,
according to Russian state
media outlet TASS
Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.)
told CNN that a Capitol
Police officer ignored his
own gunshot injuries in
order to assist House
Majority Whip Steve Scalise
(R-La.) during a shooting
Wednesday morning at a
congressional baseball
practice in Alexandria,
Virginia.
Multiple witnesses said a
gunman opened fire during
the Republican practice, and
five people — including
Scalise, a congressional
aide, and two Capitol Police
officers — were shot.
Solar activity is expected
to be very low with a slight
chance for a C-class flare
on days one, two, and three
(16 Jun, 17 Jun, 18 Jun).
The geomagnetic field is
expected to be at unsettled
to minor storm levels on day
one (16 Jun), quiet to
active levels on day two (17
Jun) and quiet to unsettled
levels on day three (18
Jun).
Conservative talk radio host
Rush Limbaugh accused the
liberal mainstream media of
radicalizing James
Hodgkinson, the man
suspected of shooting House
Majority Whip Steve Scalise
and four others on
Wednesday.
The team says its
"solar paint" can produce
hydrogen anywhere that has
water vapor in the air
Hydrogen itself is seen as a
key part of our clean-energy
future, but even better
would be hydrogen produced
using the power of the sun,
rather than electricity from
the grid. And what if you
could make your house look
pretty at the same time?
Researchers in Australia
have made a promising
breakthrough on all counts,
developing a "solar paint"
that can produce hydrogen
wherever there happens to be
moisture in the air.
“Money is being pumped out
into the system and money
that is yielding less than
nothing seeks a haven not
only in bonds that are
under-yielding but in stocks
that are overpriced,” said
Gross in a separate
interview with Bloomberg TV.
New computer
simulations suggest that
most stars probably begin
life with a twin – including
our Sun
Since the 1980s, astronomers
have been searching for the
Sun's "evil" twin, dubbed
Nemesis due to its habit of
slinging deadly asteroids
our way every 26 million
years or so. Lately, the
Nemesis hypothesis has
fallen out of favor after
decades of sky surveys have
turned up no trace of the
star, but a new mathematical
model from UC Berkeley
suggests that almost every
star is born with a buddy –
including our Sun.
New research from EWG and
Northeastern University in
Boston uncovered highly
fluorinated toxic chemicals,
known as PFCs or PFASs, in
the drinking water of 15
million Americans in 27
states, and from more than
four dozen industrial and
military sources nationwide.
U.S. President Donald Trump
on Tuesday criticized a
federal appeals court one
day after it handed him
another legal setback by
refusing to revive his U.S.
travel ban on people from
six Muslim-majority nations,
and appeared poised for the
nation’s top court to weigh
in.
Turkish President Tayyip
Erdogan on Tuesday denounced
the isolation of Qatar by
neighboring states as a
violation of Islamic values
and akin to a "death
penalty" imposed in a crisis
that has reverberated across
the Middle East and beyond.
Erdogan's
comments marked the
strongest intervention yet
by a powerful regional ally
of Doha eight days after
Saudi Arabia, the United
Arab Emirates, Bahrain and
Egypt cut ties with Qatar
and applied stringent
economic sanctions on it.
The company, which wasn't
named, quietly pushed back
in the government's secret
court against the National
Security Agency's
surveillance program, but
ultimately failed.
The US Senate Thursday
overwhelmingly passed
legislation that could lead
to new sanctions on Russia's
energy sectors and prevent
President Donald Trump from
weakening or repealing
sanctions against that
country without
congressional approval.
‘If there is any happiness,’
says Navajo attorney
general, ‘it’s probably that
the monument remains intact
as of now’
But this is not so,
according to tribal
representatives. In a June
12 press call hosted by U.S.
Sen. Tom Udall (D-NM), the
vice-chair of the Senate
Committee on Indian Affairs,
Navajo Nation Attorney
General Ethel Branch said
the tribe’s leaders have
“maintained a consistent
position that they support
the monument designation.
It’s similar to the current
vaccine controversy, in the
sense that scientists who
question the science put out
by computer models, which is
used to justify various
policy decisions, are
ridiculed by the mainstream.
It’s claimed that “97
percent of scientists” agree
on the current climate
change narrative, but there
seems to be no hard evidence
to back up that statement,
and with so many of the
world’s top scientists in
the field speaking up
against “climate alarmism,”
sometimes it seems to be the
other way around.
When conventional cancer
medicine fails to produce
positive outcomes, a humble
little seed comes to the
rescue.
A new study published in the
International Journal of
Oncology illustrates an
important shift occurring in
medical research today,
namely, a growing
recognition that
conventional treatments like
chemotherapy, taken alone,
are failing to produce
positive results and that
the use of natural
substances may be an
indispensable way to improve
outcomes.
Amazon.com Inc.’s lending
business is accelerating,
highlighting one more way
the online retailer is
making money from e-commerce
beyond simply selling
products in its web store.
“The love of possessions is
a disease with them
[Americans]. They take
tithes from the poor and
weak to support the rich who
rule. They claim this mother
of ours, the Earth, for
their own and fence their
neighbors away. If America
had been twice the size it
is, there still would not
have been enough.” ~ Sitting
Bull
Stainless steel mesh is
often used as filters and
screens in facilities such
as wastewater treatment
plants or in ventilation
shafts. But once the
material gets coated in rust
and weakened, it's usually
just discarded. Now Chinese
scientists have figured out
a way to take that metal
trash and turn into
high-performing treasure as
electrodes in potassium-ion
batteries.
Carbon has many properties,
but one word that's not
usually associated with it
is "stretchy." That is, not
until a team of scientists
from the Carnegie
Institution for Science and
Yanshan University developed
a new form of carbon that is
elastic as well as
ultra-strong, lightweight,
and electrically conductive,
properties that lend it to a
wide array of applications,
from aerospace engineering
to military armor.
Cooler-than-normal
temperatures predicted for
this summer are expected to
cause summer generation to
fall 3.3 percent
year-over-year in the third
quarter, according to the
latest short-term energy
forecast from the Energy
Information Administration.
When people walk down
the streets of Mexico City,
they might do so in search
of a bite to eat or a
glimpse at some of its
coolest modern architecture.
But they may not realize
they're standing on top of
thousands of years of
history. And every once in a
while, that history surfaces
in an amazing archaeological
find.
House Republicans voted
Thursday to deliver on their
promise to repeal Dodd-Frank
— the massive set of Wall
Street regulations President
Barack Obama signed into law
after the 2008 financial
crisis.
In a near party-line
vote, the House approved a
bill, dubbed the Financial
Choice Act, which scales
back or eliminates many of
the post-crisis banking
rules.
The weight-conscious world
is no stranger to extreme
diets. From eating only
cabbage soup for an entire
week to taking hormone pills
to boost
metabolism, questionable
weight loss methods have
become all too common. Yet
even in a world saturated
with extreme fad diets, a
new diet craze has still
managed to raise eyebrows
and rightly so.
The daughter and close
adviser of President Donald
Trump told Fox News' "Fox &
Friends" though she wasn't
expecting it to be easy, she
was taken aback by the
"ferocity" her father and
the entire Trump family have
experienced.
"It is hard. There's a
level of viciousness I was
not expecting; I was not
expecting the intensity of
this experience," Ivanka
told the Fox panel.
One of President Donald
Trump’s central (and most
controversial) campaign
promises was to shut down
the flow of immigrants
illegally crossing into the
United States, especially
from Mexico. Newly released
figures show Trump appears
to be making good on his
promise.
A 25-year-old
intelligence contractor
accused of leaking a top
secret report on Russian
meddling in last year's US
election wrote in a note
that she wanted to "burn the
White House down,"
prosecutors said.
Reality Winner appeared
in federal court Thursday in
Georgia and pleaded not
guilty to a charge of
"willful retention and
transmission of national
defense information," ABC
News reported.
Solar activity is expected
to be very low on days one,
two, and three (13 Jun, 14
Jun, 15 Jun). The
geomagnetic field is
expected to be at quiet to
unsettled levels on days one
and two (13 Jun, 14 Jun) and
quiet to active levels on
day three (15 Jun).
Ahhh…the sweet smell of
petrochemicals! The
Environmental Working Group
(EWG) reports that, while
many popular perfumes,
colognes and body sprays
contain trace amounts of
natural essences, they also
typically contain a dozen or
more potentially hazardous
synthetic chemicals, some of
which are derived from
petroleum. To protect trade
secrets, makers are allowed
to withhold fragrance
ingredients, so consumers
can’t rely on labels to know
what hazards may lurk inside
that new bottle of perfume.
Sometimes, you have to spend
a little bit more to deliver
a better product. Sometimes,
you have to embrace
continual reliable
improvement, and not treat
it as a marketing/sales
phrase. And sometimes you
have to come to the
conclusion that the way
things are being done,
although a defacto standard
for industry, they are self
defeating, undermining and
require a series of new
models to make the leap out
of the fire and onto the
beach, not into the frying
pan. That requires industry
cooperation and agreement.
We
have come a long way in the
last 100 years. My
grandparents, living through
two world wars, always ate
organic – there was no other
alternative. They never knew
“functional foods” or
genetically modified
organisms (GMOs).
Fast
forward to today, our
supermarket foodscape has
changed dramatically. What
was once sold in bulk is now
individually wrapped or
comes in a cardboard box.
Walk through a supermarket:
what’s the percentage of
wrapped, canned and boxed
foods versus fresh produce
or foods offered in bulk?
Even vegetables and fruit
sometimes come trayed and
wrapped individually, not to
mention stickers on every
apple denoting the farming
practice giving rise to it
(e.g. conventional or
organic.)
ttorney Jay Sekulow said
it is possible that Trump
and his advisers would
discuss that scenario if
there was a basis on which
to make such a decision,
saying "the president has
authority to take action,
whether he would do it is
ultimately a decision the
president makes."
However, Sekulow
emphasized he thought
it "completely conjecture
and speculative, and I can’t
imagine that the issue would
arise.”
The changing profile of the
solar and wind power
generation in the UK had a
mixed effect on UK
short-term power prices on
Friday, while prices of the
forward contracts were hit
by the weaker pound and
falling Qatari LNG supply
fears, sources said.
The USDA has announced
genetically-engineered
Kentucky Bluegrass will not
be subjected to federal
regulation and oversight.
Developed by Scotts
Miracle-Gro, the largest US
retailer of grass seed, the
herbicide-resistant grass
was specifically engineered
to withstand massive amounts
of Roundup — a herbicide
created by Monsanto, which
has experienced significant
public backlash in recent
years due to a World Health
Organization report that
classified its main
ingredient, glyphosate, as
“probably carcinogenic to
humans.”
Europe's chief executive
appealed to EU governments
on Friday to forge a
military alliance to defend
the bloc and enhance its
power abroad, warning that
the United States was no
longer prepared to do it for
them.
It’s a tale as old as
time: The federal government
wants to reform the Bureau
of Indian Affairs (BIA) to
better serve both American
Indians and taxpayers.
There have been numerous
hearings, both in the Senate
and in the House, over many
decades that have explored
plans that would combine,
create and eliminate
programs; shuffle and/or
fire employees; increase
and/or decrease spending,
create new offices; reduce
office space;
reduce/increase paternalism;
and even allow tribes to
have a real role in the
leadership.
What becomes of high school
valedictorians? It’s what
every parent wishes their
teenager to be. Mom says
study hard and you’ll do
well. And very often Mom is
right.
According to Alabama Media
Group, 13 counties in
Alabama replaced work
requirements for food stamp
participation and saw an
astounding 85 percent drop
in people using the program.
Growing old: It's for the
poors. Feasting on the
vitality of the young in a
scientifically questionable
effort to live forever?...
In subsuming the blood of
the (likely) innocent, those
aging customers are banking
on a little-studied field of
science known as parabiosis.
Parabiosis, which has been
looked at mainly in mice
(plus a few human trials),
explores the possibility
that young blood can reverse
the symptoms of aging when
transfused to the elderly.
The disclosure
provides new insight into
how Sanders’ presidential
campaign affected his own
personal finances. It was
due on May 15, but Sanders
failed to file, instead
seeking an extension. The
book royalties were the most
noteworthy new source of
income Sanders reported in
the election-year filings.
Most of that
money, $795,000, comes from
Our Revolution: A Future
To Believe In,...
Regardless of your views on
the pros and cons of
recreational marijuana, the
body of scientific evidence
about the medicinal value of
cannabis is getting more
compelling as additional
research is done. The
cannabinoids in cannabis —
cannabidiol (CBD) and
tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) —
interact with your body by
way of naturally-occurring
cannabinoid receptors
embedded in cell membranes
throughout your body.
The U.S. electric power
sector consumed 677 million
short tons of coal in 2016,
down 35 percent from its
peak in 2008 and the lowest
level since 1984, the Energy
Information Administration
reported.
Power generation
accounted for over 93
percent of all coal consumed
in the United States. An
estimated two third of that
coal was shipped either
completely or in part by
railroad.
A wastewater treatment
plant in Mississippi has run
afoul of regulators by
discharging cyanide into
waterways.
“The city of Forest
agreed to pay the fine to
the Mississippi Department
of Environmental Quality.
The regulator cited Forest
for violations in November
2014 and February 2015,
saying the cyanide exceeded
the limits allowed in
wastewater in both months.
The total fine is for
$7,500, but Forest won't
have to pay $5,500 if it
meets cyanide limits for
three straight months
through June,” the
Associated Press reported.
During May, ENSO-neutral
continued, though sea
surface temperatures (SSTs)
were above average in the
east-central Pacific Ocean.
The latest weekly Niño index
values were near +0.5°C in
most of the Niño regions,
except for the easternmost
...
Chancellor Angela
Merkel's Cabinet decided
Wednesday to pull German
troops and reconnaissance
aircraft out of Turkey's
Incirlik air base after
Turkish officials refused to
let lawmakers visit them.
The troops and planes
participating in the
international coalition
against the Islamic State
group will redeploy to
Jordan. Merkel portrayed the
move as allowing Germany and
Turkey to put aside one of
many problems causing
friction between the two
NATO allies.
The Azzuri-Cachorros Chicas
girls soccer team in Omaha,
Nebraska, was set to play in
the tournament championship
on Sunday, but the team was
suddenly disqualified before
taking the field after
tournament
officials believed one of
the players was a boy,
according to the girl’s
family.
Many off-grid users of
renewable energy abhor
wasting energy. We obsess
about load efficiency,
switching off lights, and
putting phantom loads on
plug strips. But few people
realize how much energy is
wasted by charge
controllers. This article
can help you use most of
your system’s available
energy.
PV
system generates electricity
during the sunny hours (as
do wind turbines in windy
hours), but much of this
energy is needed at other
times, such as evenings or
periods of calm. The
solution to this mismatch is
to store energy in
batteries.
One of the most
enduring astronomical
mysteries may have finally
been solved, as researchers
find that comets are strong
candidates for the famous
Wow! signal
The short answer is no.
Although recent statistics
from the U.S. Energy
Information Administration
say wind exceeded hydro in
total generating capacity at
the end of 2016, their
capacity numbers don’t
include pumped storage in
hydropower.
Fired FBI Director James
Comey testified Thursday in
front of the Senate
Intelligence Committee on
Capitol Hill, shedding light
on several key questions
regarding President Donald
Trump and the investigation
into possible collusion with
Russia, as well as the
investigation into possible
false statements made by
former national security
adviser Ret. Gen. Michael
Flynn, and Comey’s own
termination as FBI director.
Holistic doctor,
researcher and writer
Christopher Bayley King, was
shot dead outside an organic
restaurant in Boulder,
Colorado on Memorial Day, as
the community of physicians
seeking to operate outside
the confines of Big Pharma
continues to be decimated.
Over 60 holistic doctors
and researchers have been
found dead in the past 18
months, most of whom died in
suspicious and unsolved
circumstances.
The utility announced in
2015 plans to either retire
the coal units or convert
them to alternative fuel
sources. Though one
coal-fired unit at Lake Road
Station was converted to
natural gas last year,
several emerging industry
trends and changing
circumstances lead the
company to choose
retirement.
“When these power plants
started operation more than
50 years ago, coal was the
primary means of producing
energy.
Nearly one-third (32%) of
residential customers
reported some type of water
quality problem in the past
year, according to the J.D.
Power 2017 Water Utility
Residential Customer
Satisfaction Study,SM released
recently. Among the specific
problems reported, pressure
too low, bad taste,
discoloration and
scaling/water hardness had
the most significant
negative effect on customer
satisfaction.
Reality Winner, the
25-year-old federal
contractor charged with
leaking top secret
information to the media,
has a long social media
trail of liberal political
posts and is a supporter of
Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Winner also hates
President Donald Trump, once
posting that the president
is a "piece of s***" over
his moves to stop protests
against the Dakota Access
pipeline. Her social media
posts have included
#notmypresident as well as
calls to #resist over
Trump's environmental
policies as well as DAPL.
There are a lot of unknowns
when it comes to the
monumental amount of plastic
in the ocean, including how
exactly it gets there in the
first place. The folks at
the Ocean Cleanup Project
have just conducted a study
that explores one of the
major inputs, the world's
river systems, with the
findings suggesting that
these waterways funnel
millions of metric tons of
plastic waste into the
oceans each year.
Oman faces regular threats
from algal blooms, turning
the water green and
providing a massive spike in
turbidity and organics. A
pre-treatment plant was
delivered in less than a
year capable of protecting
desalination equipment and
allows for continued
operation in these difficult
feed water conditions.
Solar activity is expected
to be very low with a slight
chance for a C-class flare
on days one, two, and three
(09 Jun, 10 Jun, 11 Jun).
The geomagnetic field is
expected to be at quiet
levels on days one, two, and
three (09 Jun, 10 Jun, 11
Jun).
The Senate has passed
legislation to make it
easier for the Department of
Veterans Affairs to fire its
employees. It's an effort
touted by President Donald
Trump to hold the VA
accountable after years of
problems.
An increase in mean
temperature of 0.5 degrees
Celsius over half a century
may not seem all that
serious, but it’s enough to
have more than doubled the
probability of a heat wave
killing in excess of 100
people in India, according
to researchers at the
University of California,
Irvine and other
institutions.
This could have grim
implications for the future,
because mean temperatures
are projected to rise by 2.2
to 5.5 degrees Celsius by
the end of this century in
the low- and mid-latitude
countries of the Asian
subcontinent, the Middle
East, Africa and South
America.
A powerful new study
reminds us that natural
medicine was once, and still
is, the default medical
system on this planet…
In fact, the use of
synthetically produced
patent medicines
(pharmaceuticals) is a
relatively recent
development (circa 1870),
and should really be called
the “alternative medicine”
vis-a-vis time-tested, far
safer approaches that rely
on food, spices, and
carefully prepared and
administered plant extracts.
...Consider, he says,
that sperm are the only
cells in the body destined
to be cast forth into a
foreign environment—a feat
that requires dramatic
physical changes as they
travel from the testes into
a woman’s reproductive
tract.
“No other cells do that,”
says Pitnick, who has been
studying sperm for more than
20 years. “They have this
autonomy.”
The marriage between
psychiatry and
pharmaceuticals is about 100
years old, but only recently
has it exploded into this
billion-dollar industry.
In the early 19th century,
the first magical drugs were
morphine and opium. Until
they quickly discovered they
solved nothing and only
created more problems with
addiction. Then it was
Sigmund Freud, the father of
psychotherapy,” introduced
the world to the new magic
drug – cocaine. He spoke
candidly of the drug for its
effects of creating joy,
excitement, motivation, and
euphoria despite his
patients overdosing on the
“medicine.”
Central bankers and
investors are grappling with
a $100 trillion question:
why consumer price inflation
remains so low in most parts
of the world even as
economic growth quickens.
Compounding the riddle,
question marks are now
emerging over the one part
of the global inflation
picture that had been moving
higher -- producer prices.
That’s because two engines
of that turnaround --
China’s resurgent factories
and prospects for tax-cut
fueled stimulus under
President Donald Trump --
are showing signs of
fading.
Imagine it's July 20, 1969
and no one is paying much
attention as Neil Armstrong
sets foot on the Moon,
because all eyes are on the
first manned mission to
reach Saturn. That may sound
absurd, but while NASA was
figuring out how to use
rockets to reach the Moon, a
super secret US government
project was developing a
gigantic reusable spaceship
powered by atom bomb
explosions that was designed
to carry a crew of 20 to the
outer Solar System by 1970
as a first step to the
stars. New Atlas looks at
the story behind the
original Orion Project.
Transgender sprinter Andraya
Yearwood, a freshman who was
born a male, won the girls
100-meter and 200-meter
dashes at the Connecticut
high school Class M state
championships — victories
that didn’t come without
some controversy.
Former FBI Director James
Comey set the media’s hair
on fire when he released his
prepared statement for his
highly anticipated testimony
set for Thursday. While some
are saying there are
bombshell implications to
the testimony, President
Trump has released only a
three sentence response.
VA Secretary David Shulkin
announced Monday morning
that the VA would be
adopting the same electronic
health records system as the
Department of Defense, a
move that follows calls for
the VA to modernize its IT
systems.
Hours after conciliatory
comments from his State
Department, the president on
Wednesday offered a
seemingly contradictory
statement, providing solace
to the victims while
delivering a broadside
against Tehran. The Islamic
State group claimed
responsibility for attacks
on Iran’s parliament and the
tomb of its revolutionary
leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah
Khomeini.
Decades or longer may be
needed to fully assess the
effects of unconventional
oil and gas production on
the quality of groundwater
used for drinking water in
Arkansas, Louisiana, and
Texas.
Mexico on Tuesday conceded
to U.S. demands for changes
in the terms of Mexican
access to the lucrative U.S.
sugar market, striking a
deal with Washington that
will likely lift prices of
the sweetener to U.S. food
processors and consumers.
ollowing rapid growth across
the industry in 2016, the
United States solar market
added 2,044 megawatts of new
capacity in the first
quarter of 2017. As
installations grow, prices
continue to fall to new
lows, with utility-scale
system prices dropping below
the $1 per watt barrier for
the first time, according to
GTM Research and the Solar
Energy Industries
Association’s (SEIA) latest
U.S. Solar Market Insight
Report.
Russian hacking of the
2016 U.S. election included
sophisticated targeting of
state officials responsible
for voter rolls and voting
procedures, according to a
top secret U.S. intelligence
document that was leaked and
published this week,
revealing another potential
method of attempted
interference in the vote.
The month-old National
Security Agency document
outlined activities
including impersonating an
election software vendor to
send trick emails to more
than 100 state election
officials. Analysts at the
NSA believed the hackers
were working for the Russian
military's General Staff
Main Intelligence
Directorate, or GRU,
according to the document.
Ancestry scientists have
an unusual answer: Create a
ground-breaking map of
America’s history-based
diversity using the genetic
data from the analysis of
the samples.
This unique map shows
this country’s great
migrations, the echoes of
our pioneer ancestors in our
genes today.
There are “alien molecules”
that are slowly turning you
into a woman. They cause
extra body fat, making your
pecs soft and your belly
expand. This extra fat
doesn’t come from consuming
extra calories, more carbs
or excess sugar. It comes
from chemicals. And these
aren’t chemicals found in
paint remover or industrial
pollution. They’re all
around you… they’re even in
some so-called “health
foods!”
Solar panels — and solar
energy — are officially
cheaper than fossil fuels.
That means that forms of
fuel that are available on
every continent, all over
the world are now preferable
— even economically — to
those resources that can
only be found in certain
regions, and with the right
equipment. The effects of
this change are far
reaching, and go well beyond
the obvious sustainability
benefits. By harnessing
these resources, third world
and struggling countries are
able to change their fate,
and the one seeing the
biggest difference is the
most troubled of all:
Africa.
World Environment Day: What
Does The Future Hold For
Earth's Ecosystems?
To find answers, scientists
affiliated with the National
Science Foundation's (NSF)
Long-Term Ecological
Research (LTER) network came
together this spring...
As retreating ice relieved
seafloor pressures, trapped
methane burst through to the
water column, study says
In the 1990s, researchers
discovered several large
craters marring the floor of
the Barents Sea, the icy
body of water stretching
between Scandinavia,
northern Russia and the
Arctic circle. But recent
imaging of the this region
has revealed hundreds of
pockmarks scattered across
the sea floor. And as
Chelsea Harvey reports for
The Washington Post,
researchers think they have
figured out why: methane.
“Leading scientists recently
identified a dozen chemicals
as being responsible for
widespread behavioral and
cognitive problems. But the
scope of the chemical
dangers in our environment
is likely even greater. …
Children and the poor are
most susceptible to
neurotoxic exposure that may
be costing the U.S. billions
of dollars and immeasurable
peace of mind.” ~ The
Atlantic
If you want to understand
the demise of coal despite
what some politicians
insist, consider this quote
from CEO Pat
Vincent-Collawn,
whose utility is invested in
New Mexico’s Four Corners
Power Plant: “The current
data clearly supports the
replacement of the coal ...
with an energy mix that
includes more renewables and
natural gas as the best,
most economical path.”
The U.S. economy is expected
to grow at a 4.0 percent
annualized pace in the
second quarter based on the
latest data on factory
activity, construction and
consumer spending released
this week, the Atlanta
Federal Reserve's GDP Now
forecast model showed
The Chinese government is
reportedly working to
develop a revolutionary new
warship that would merge the
size and strength of large
conventional ships with the
ability to submerge
underwater.
“There is a lot of smoke,”
Warner, who is vice chairman
of the Intelligence
Committee, told CNN’s Jake
Tapper. “We have no smoking
gun at this point, but there
is a lot of smoke.”
Two Democratic senators
asked then-FBI Director
James Comey to investigate
Attorney General
Jeff Sessions amid
concerns about his "lack of
candor" regarding
conversations with Russian
Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.
"We are concerned about
Attorney General Sessions'
lack of candor to the
committee and his failure
thus far to accept
responsibility for testimony
that could be construed as
perjury," Sens.
Patrick Leahy (Vt.)
and
Al Franken (Minn.)
wrote in a letter to the
former FBI director.
Liberal activists are
urging U.S. Supreme Court
Justice Anthony Kennedy, a
conservative with whom they
often disagree, to put off
any thought of retirement,
fearing President Donald
Trump would replace him with
a jurist further to the
right.
The liberal Democrats'
keep-Kennedy campaign, being
pursued publicly and
privately, reflects how
powerless they have become
against the Republican
president when it comes to
high court vacancies since
the Senate in April reduced
the vote tally needed to
confirm a Supreme Court
nomination to 51 from 60.
The security firm Check
Point has warned of a
massive new outbreak: They
count 250 million PCs
infected with malicious code
they’ve called Fireball,
designed to hijack browsers
to change the default search
engine, and track their web
traffic on behalf of a
Beijing-based digital
marketing firm called
Rafotech. But more
disturbingly, Check Point
says it found that the
malware also has the ability
to remotely run any code on
the victim’s machine, or
download new malicious
files. It’s potentially
serious malware, disguised
as something more trivial.
Fox News continues to have
the largest total cable-news
audience, both during the
day and in primetime, but
the shrinking gap between
FNC and its competition has
been enough to convince many
investors to sell off their
stock in Twenty-First
Century Fox, a trend that
has had a significant
financial impact on the
Murdoch family.
A nonprofit legal watchdog
claimed Thursday that newly
unearthed documents show
Hillary Clinton sent and
received more classified
information on her private
server than previously
known, and that the papers
also show top aide Huma
Abedin did favors for
Clinton Foundation insiders.
Judicial Watch released
more than 2,000 pages of
documents...
The new documents
included 115 Clinton email
exchanges that were not
previously turned over by
the State Department.
During Ramadan, Muslims
are required to fast during
the day. Fasting during
Ramadan is so important to
Muslims that it is included
in Islam’s five core
beliefs, known as the “Five
Pillars of Islam.” During
the “holy month,” Muslims
focus on prayer, repentance
and coming closer to their
god.
While some Muslims use
the month for peace, others
use the month for violence.
The Brayton Point
Power Station,
Massachusetts'
last operating coal-fired power
plant, ended operations
today. The 1,500 megawatt
power plant, once the
largest in the region, had
been in operation for 50
years. The retirement was
announced in 2013 and was
the 150th coal-fired power
plant across the country to
announce retirement since
2010.
Although it showed plenty of
promise during development,
the rotary engine was never
widely used. Rotary (or
Wankel) engines are renowned
for smoothness, but they
chew through fuel and lack
torque compared to piston
engines. In spite of these
flaws, the technology enjoys
a cult following thanks to
Mazda and its range of
rotary sports cars. Today
marks 50 years since the
Mazda Cosmo Sport 110S
launched in Tokyo, and
started a rotary love affair
in the process.
Scientists observing the
rift in the Larsen C Ice
Shelf in West Antarctica
have reported dramatic
cracking over the past week.
The rift has grown a
startling 11 miles (17 km)
over the last seven days,
bringing it to within eight
miles (13 km) of breaking
off and producing one of the
largest ever recorded
icebergs.
Trump might have just pulled
the U.S. out of the Paris
climate accord, an
international pact to fight
global warming. But market
forces will continue to
squeeze carbon dioxide out
of the U.S. power mix as
generators replace costly
and aging coal-fired units
with cheaper,
cleaner-burning natural gas
ones, according to William
Nelson, an analyst at
Bloomberg New Energy
Finance. And for every
megawatt-hour of electricity
produced from gas rather
than coal, the U.S. is
keeping about 0.6 metric ton
of emissions out of the air,
he said.
Solar activity is expected
to be very low with a chance
for a C-class flares and a
slight chance for an M-class
flare on day one (06 Jun)
and expected to be very low
with a chance for a C-class
flares on days two and three
(07 Jun, 08 Jun). The
geomagnetic field is
expected to be at quiet
levels on days one, two, and
three (06 Jun, 07 Jun, 08
Jun).
“Shut up and believe,”
Carlson mocked of those
skeptical of Trump’s
decision to withdraw from
the climate accord, and
noted that the “essence of
science” isn’t accepting
something as fact without
question, it is
“skepticism.”
The saga of the Larsen C
crack is about reach its
stunning conclusion.
Scientists have watched a
rift grow along one of
Antarctica’s ice shelves for
years. Now it’s in the final
days of cutting off a piece
of ice that will be one of
the largest icebergs ever
recorded.
Our planet is drowning in
plastic. It has contaminated
our land and water, and now
is being found in salt, in
particularly the healthy,
mineral-rich sea salt. A new
study has tested 16 brands
of sea salt from eight
different countries, and 15
of them contained traced of
microplastics (MPs).
President Trump's speech
Thursday was extraordinarily
important and powerful.
He set the stage for a
new, practical common-sense
approach to a better
environment with a better
economy. He also
re-established the sound
principle that an American
President's first obligation
is to the American people
and the American nation.
Finally, he brilliantly
concluded his analysis with
an emphasis on
renegotiation.
MI5 is the UK’s domestic
counter-intelligence and
security agency. It was
recently discovered that MI5
was warned by the FBI in
January that the suicide
bomber was planning an
attack in the UK. The
bomber, 22-year-old Salman
Abedi, who was part of a
North African Islamic State
cell based in England, was
placed on an FBI “terrorist
watch list” in 2016. Abedi
made it onto this list as a
result of an investigation
into terrorist groups in
Libya.
By 2050, it is
estimated that around 66
percent of the world's
population will be living in
cities. Without a plan in
place, climate change and
the pressures of a growing
society could see the costs
of managing an overheated
city stacking up...
If you thought last year's
heat waves were bad, brace
yourself because there's a
good chance things are going
to become even more intense,
especially if you live in a
major city. Economists from
the UK, Mexico and the
Netherlands report that
thanks to the urban heat
island effect, around a
quarter of the 1,692 cities
surveyed could become warmer
by as much as 8°C (14.4°F)
by 2100. As the mercury
spikes, so will the economic
costs of running an
overheated city. On the
bright side, there's a
solution to this and it
begins in your neighborhood.
The U.S. power sector
consumed 677 million short
tons of coal last year, the
lowest level since 1984, the
U.S. Energy Information
Administration reported
Friday.
That was a 35 percent
decline from 2008, when coal
demand in the power sector
hit its peak.
WikiLeaks just published
details of a purported CIA
operation that turns Windows
file servers into covert
attack machines that
surreptitiously infect
computers of interest inside
a targeted network.
Does someone in your life
regularly attack or judge
you before getting the story
straight? If so, you’re not
alone, and know how absurd
this kind of interaction is
— especially because it’s so
preventable!
The single most common
source of conflict I
encounter on a daily basis
is the act of assumption —
assuming anything before
getting the facts straight.
We fail to ask, and instead
assume. And when our
assumption is negative, we
usually engage with a fair
amount of emotional baggage,
arriving at false
conclusions and ingraining
false beliefs in our
misguided little noggens.
From the Himalayas to
Switzerland, the world’s
glaciers are
melting—threatening vital
water supplies and
increasing the risk of sea
level rise
In the next 25 years, more
than half of all of
Switzerland’s small glaciers
will disappear—and Canada
could lose 70 percent of the
volume of its frozen rivers
by 2100.
While the possibilities of
magnetic-resonance-based
wireless charging are very
exciting, the technology is
frequently misunderstood by
those not involved in the
industry.
For the first time,
scientists have extracted
full nuclear genome data
from ancient Egyptian
mummies. The results offer
exciting insights into how
different ancient
civilizations intermingled
and also establishes a
breakthrough precedent in
our ability to study ancient
DNA.
Nearly half of Americans
took at least one
prescription drug in the
past 30 days,but chances are
most of them did not give
much thought to where those
drugs came from. Unbeknownst
to many, most drugs taken by
Americans are not made in
the U.S. but, rather, come
from bulk drug manufacturing
facilities in places like
China and India.
Perchlorate contamination
of drinking water may be the
source of thyroid problems
among Arizona residents.
Arizona has more
perchlorate contamination
than most other states,
according to KAWC. The
Colorado River is
contaminated with the
chemical because it moves
from an industrial facility
in Henderson, NV, to
groundwater to Lake Mead,
which feeds the river.
Baby teeth from children
with autism contain more
toxic lead and less of the
essential nutrients zinc and
manganese, compared to teeth
from children without
autism, according to an
innovative study funded by
the National Institute of
Environmental Health
Sciences, NIEHS, part of the
National Institutes of
Health.
Access to safe drinking
water is a global crisis,
which is why developing new,
innovative ways to convert
river water, wastewater and
agricultural waste into
clean water is critical.
Thanks to new innovations in
the field of treatment,
promising technologies could
eliminate the reality of
living with scarce water
resources. Here are a few of
the most interesting
innovations we’ve seen enter
the clean water space over
the last year.
While the famed bright spot
on dwarf planet Ceres got
lots of attention in the
past few years, it turns out
that there are a few bright
spots a bit closer to home.
Analyzing data from NASA's
Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter
(LRO), researchers have
spotted bright areas on our
own moon which, they say,
are likely being caused by
frost. If they're right, the
frozen water particles could
be as old as the solar
system itself and could
provide clues about ancient
water delivery to the moon
and Earth.
hether water has a taste of
its own or is merely a
flavor carrier has long
divided the scientific
community. Some scientists
have proposed that its
flavor depends on your
saliva and what you were
eating previously, while
others have argued that it
has its own, albeit
undefined, taste that can be
sensed by the brain. A new
study by Caltech researchers
could help advance this
debate: according to their
findings, not only does such
a sense exist, but it's
located in an unexpected
place.
For the past six years,
one Michigan family has
shared their organic
fruit at a local farmers
market, but now their
religious beliefs are
standing in the way of that
tradition.
The kerfuffle
between Steve Tennes, who
owns a 120-acre orchard in
Charlotte, Michigan, and the
city officials in East
Lansing — which is more than
20 miles away — began when
he expressed his views on
gay marriage in a Facebook
post last year.
No, I’m not talking about
chicken chow mein, but
chickens from China.
Don’t we have enough
chickens in the U.S., you
might ask? Yes, of course we
do!
As part of a trade
agreement that started
hatching during the Obama
administration, a
multi-national swap of
chicken-for-beef has been in
the rotisserie since 2014,
when the USDA gave a green
light to several Chinese
poultry processing plants.
here are two mantras of old
school journalism that
appear to have gone the way
of the rotary phone: 1)
Never believe the first
answer, and 2) When in
doubt, check it out. In the
early 1980s when I began my
career in television news,
even a shred of doubt was
enough for us to whip out
the journalistic shovel and
commence digging. Woodward
and Bernstein were our
idols, the unrelenting model
of perfection to which we
all aspired. We were trained
to ask the questions with
one eyebrow up. Skepticism
was a badge of honor. We
didn’t seek the fleeting
“ah-hah” moments of today’s
reporting, we sought
truth. There was no cutting
and pasting in haste to get
a story before the
competition.
The nonprofit Moms Clean Air
Force, a community of moms
and dads united against air
pollution and the urgent
climate change crisis,
announced today that it had
topped the
one-million-member
milestone.
Flynn's cooperation was the
first signal that he and the
Senate panel have found
common ground. Congressional
investigators continue to
press for key documents in
the ongoing investigation,
and the retired lieutenant
general is trying to limit
damaging disclosures that
hostile Democratic lawmakers
could use against him.
The LCLS can snap high
resolution images of
individual viruses,
bacteria, proteins and
molecules. The system works
by blasting objects with
extremely bright x-ray
pulses lasting just
femtoseconds (about a
million-billionths of a
second) that generate enough
energy to cut through steel.
Studying microscopic objects
with the LCLS could improve
our understanding of
particle physics, drug
development, photosynthesis,
nuclear fusion, and
spintronics.
Almost 60 years ago an
astrophysicist named Eugene
Parker published a paper
describing what he believed
to be high speed matter and
magnetism emanating from the
sun. For just as long,
scientists have sought to
learn the mechanisms behind
this far-reaching
phenomenon, which we know
today as solar winds. NASA
says advances in technology
have now made it possible to
get some answers, and it
will next year launch its
first probe to enter orbit
around our star in an effort
to unlock some of its
long-held secrets
With the impending
closure of the Navajo
Generating Station and,
consequently, the
Kayenta coal mine by the
end of 2019, many local
and county officials are
scrambling to find ways
to meet budget revenues
and avoid a potential
spike in unemployment.
But one Navajo Nation
man believes there is
more at stake other than
jobs and revenue. In
fact, he is awaiting the
day when NGS permanently
closes its doors.
The opioid epidemic has
killed tens of thousands
over the past two years and
driven major reforms in
state and local law
enforcement and public
health policies for people
with addiction.
But another deadly but
popular drug,
methamphetamine, also has
been surging in many parts
of the country. And federal
officials say that, based on
what they learned as opioids
swept the U.S.,
methamphetamine is likely to
spread even further.
Do you have a green thumb?
Many people who do believe
that it’s all about
intuition Much like
parenting, you are
responsible for nourishing
the plants you grow with the
utmost care, or else they’ll
die. Proper food, proper
environment, and so on make
for a healthy living thing.
But some people feel they’re
just not cut out for the
job, claiming every plant
they bring home just dies on
them — that plants
simply don’t like them.
National Review contributing
editor Andrew McCarthy said
that although liberals and
opponents of President
Donald Trump were overjoyed
at the implications of the
Washington Post story
claiming Jared Kushner asked
for a Russian back-channel,
they missed that it
completely blew up their
favorite conspiracy
theory. He made the comments
on Fox News’ “The
Specialists” Tuesday.
Billions of people may
face a threat posed by
radioactive materials in
water.
“A shocking new study has
revealed that groundwater
drunk by billions of people
may have been contaminated
by decades of nuclear
weapons testing. Researchers
looked at more than 6,000
wells around the globe, some
containing water more than
10,000 years old, found more
than half had traces of
tritium,” the Daily Mail
reported.
America is blessed with a
diverse portfolio of energy
resources. We rank first in
the world in oil and natural
gas production, No. 1 in
nuclear power generation,
No. 1 in renewable energy,
and No. 2 in coal output...
In an ideal world, all
energy resources would
compete on a level playing
field; but in the real
world, energy markets are
rife with subsidies. Perhaps
the most egregious are those
afforded wind and solar
installations, currently
receiving direct federal
subsidies of about $12
billion per year in addition
to a wide range of state and
local tax breaks.
Oil started flowing through
the Dakota Access Pipeline
(DAPL) on Thursday June 1 as
the Standing Rock Sioux and
other tribes vowed to
continue their court fight
to get the approvals
overthrown.
With oil prices remaining
low, hopes of combating
climate change through
emissions reduction are
improving as the oil
industry shrinks
Big oil is getting smaller.
Many of the oil services
companies that are employed
when new fields are being
developed have been laying
off workers, and oil
companies have been writing
down their assets.
"Allegations are not facts.
Nobody's searching for the
truth anymore," O'Reilly,
who was fired in April amid
allegations of sexual
harassment that he has
denied, told The Associated
Press in one of his first
interviews since his
dismissal.
The Pentagon scored an
important success Tuesday in
a test of its oft-criticized
missile defense program,
destroying a mock warhead
over the Pacific Ocean with
an interceptor that is key
to protecting U.S. territory
from a North Korean attack.
Companies including
Cars.com, Peloton, and Leesa
Sleep have all given in
to pressure to cease
advertising on the show over
Hannity’s pursuit of now
retracted claims made by Fox
News that murdered DNC
employee Seth Rich had
contact with Wikileaks
before his death.
Solar activity is likely to
be low with a slight
chance for an M-class flare
on days one, two, and three
(02 Jun, 03 Jun, 04 Jun).
The geomagnetic field is
expected to be at quiet to
unsettled levels on days one
and three (02 Jun, 04 Jun)
and unsettled to active
levels on day two (03 Jun).
"The
United States is
lagging behind on energy
efficiency and renewable
energy resources. We have
barely scratched the surface
of our potential,"
Congressman Welch
said. "This legislation charts
a new energy future where
energy efficiency and
renewable technologies are
put to work creating jobs,
saving money and improving
the environment."
Dangjin is home to 10
coal-fired power plants, and
villagers believe
particulate matter, known as
fine dust, from the plants
is killing them. Last year's
public health report
conducted by
South Chungcheong Province
revealed Dangjin residents
had higher rates of
cardiovascular and
respiratory problems
compared to other regions.
Four of the
subpoenas are related
directly to Russian
meddling, which is also also
the subject of probes from
the Senate Intelligence
Committee and FBI.
The other three
focus on allegations of
improper “unmasking” of
Trump campaign officials,
according to The Wall Street
Journal.
On Sunday, Robert Bigelow —
real estate mogul and
founder of the space habitat
company Bigelow Aerospace —
did an interview with 60
Minutes, in which he
touted the strengths of the
commercial space industry
and how private companies
would pave the way for
people to live in space. He
also said aliens have
definitely visited Earth.
After four years
of construction, the world's
largest plane has just
rolled out of its giant
hangar for the first time.
The Stratolaunch aircraft,
which boasts a wingspan
greater than a football
field, is designed to carry
rockets into the
stratosphere, where they are
released before firing their
engines and continuing on
into space.
The giant
twin-fuselage aircraft,
which weighs in at 500,000
lb (226,000 kg), is designed
to carry payloads up to
550,000 lb (249,476 kg).
With a wingspan of 385 ft
(117 m), it outreaches the
320-ft (97.5-m) wingspan of
the Spruce Goose...
Gallup just released
their annual environmental
poll, conducted in March,
and maybe it’s not
surprising, but 63 percent
of respondents said they
“worry a great deal about
pollution of their drinking
water.”
Gallup reports that these
results reflect an
all-time high concern
since they started
the poll 16 years ago...
Our children might be
safest in… Sweden, a
government bold enough to
say “no” to Big Pharma.
The Swedish government
recently rejected
proposals to both increase
the number of vaccinations
children receive and to
mandate a vaccination
schedule. The reasons cited
included that mandatory
vaccination violated Swedes’
constitutional rights and
adverse effects that can
occur from vaccinating young
children
Water security is a global
issue and even in the United
States, with our rich and
diverse water resources,
once relied-upon water
systems are now at risk.
California is slowly
recovering from a five-year
drought, the Colorado River
is beginning to run dry in
places, and Lake Mead, which
supplies water to 22 million
people, reached record low
levels in 2016 and could run
dry by 2021 if conditions
persist. And the problem
isn’t limited to the arid
southwest. Water shortages
are expected in 40 states
over the next decade,
according to the U.S.
Government Accountability
Office.
Teen births continue to
decline in the United
States, with health
officials reporting a 9
percent drop from 2013 to
2014.
Births to 15- to
19-year-olds fell to a
historic low of 24 births
per 1,000 women in 2014,
said Sherry Murphy, a
statistician at the U.S.
Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention's National
Center for Health
Statistics.
When Musk was asked on
Twitter what his response
would be if the president
decided to pull the U.S. out
of the agreement, he said,
“Will have no choice but to
depart councils in that
case.”
The Deep State refers to a
coordinated effort by career
government employees and
others to influence state
policy without regard for
democratically elected
leadership.
North Korea is already one
of the most dangerous places
in the world, and it’s
becoming more perilous by
the day. ..
An electromagnetic pulse,
or EMP, occurs when a
relatively small but
carefully designed nuclear
warhead is detonated in the
atmosphere. The explosion
causes what can best be
described as a massive power
surge, which can damage or
disable electrical devices
for hundreds of miles on the
ground below. As I told the
Senate Committee, such an
attack would be catastrophic
to the United States because
we are an
electricity-dependent nation
and our grid is ill-prepared
to handle it.
I am not talking about
simple, isolated, short-term
blackouts like those which
have occurred in New York,
Los Angeles, or Detroit.
These blackouts could
encompass entire regions...
A company in Switzerland has
just opened the first
commercial CO2 capturing
plant. The negative
emissions technology built
by Climeworks will capture
900 tons of CO2 annually.
The CO2 is then used to grow
food in nearby greenhouses.
This is part of an effort to
stick to the Paris climate
agreement's goal of reducing
global temperatures
The owner of
Three
Mile Island, site of
the United States' worst
commercial nuclear power
accident, says it will shut
down the plant in 2019
without a financial rescue
from Pennsylvania.
Exelon Corp. said
Monday's announcement comes
after five years of losses
on the power plant and its
recent failure in an auction
to sell Three Mile Island's
power into the regional
grid.
The revelations posted by
the investigative-news
website The Intercept on
Saturday May 27 did not come
as much of a surprise to
water protectors who spent
time on the front lines or
at the camps near Standing
Rock in opposition to the
Dakota Access Pipeline
(DAPL). In fact the
allegations of intense
surveillance by private
contractor TigerSwan, as if
water protectors were
terroristic jihadists rather
than peaceful, prayerful
protesters upholding the
right to clean water,
validated the experience of
those people on the ground
last summer and fall.
President Donald Trump
said Thursday that he would
withdraw the United States
from the Paris climate
agreement, "vowing to
fulfill my solemn duty to
protect America and its
citizens."
"We're getting out, but
we'll start to negotiate and
we will see if we can make a
deal that's fair," Trump
said in an announcement in
the White House Rose Garden.
"If we can, that's great.
And if we can't, that's
fine."
The San Francisco Chronicle
reported Sunday that UC
President Janet Napolitano
's office reimbursed regents
for more than $225,000 in
dinner parties since 2012,
including $17,600 for a
banquet held the night
before the board voted to
raise tuition
The USAA financial
services firm is reinstating
its advertising on Sean
Hannity's Fox News Channel
program after receiving
heavy criticism for its
initial decision from many
of the military members and
veterans that it serves.
The San Antonio,
Texas-based company said
Tuesday it will also start
advertising again on other
programs where it had
suspended ads, including
"Hardball" and "The Rachel
Maddow Show" on MSNBC, and
Jake Tapper's "The Lead" on
CNN.
The United States started
distributing rifles,
ammunition and vehicles to
the Kurdish People’s
Protection Unit, known as
the YPG, about three weeks
after President Donald Trump
approved arming the group,
said Eric Pahon, a spokesman
for the Defense Department.
The YPG make up about half
of the Syrian Democratic
Forces, the U.S.-backed
militia force charged with
destroying ISIS in Syria.
The Federal Reserve on
Tuesday said it had fined
Deutsche Bank AG $41 million
for failing to ensure its
systems would detect money
laundering regulations and
it said the lender agreed to
increase its controls.
The New York Fed found
that the German bank had
faulty systems to detect
suspicious transactions
between 2011 and 2015, the
central bank said in its
filing.
If spent fuel at one of
America’s dozens of nuclear
sites is set on fire, it
“could dwarf the horrific
consequences of the
Fukushima accident,”
researchers from
Princeton University
and the
Union of Concerned
Scientists cautioned
in a study published in the
Friday issue of Science
Magazine, censuring
the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission
(NRC) for ignoring the
potential danger.
A moderate-intensity walking
regimen may reduce symptoms
of mild cognitive impairment
that are linked to poor
blood vessel health in the
brain, a small study
suggests
But if a single bugging
of the political opposition
is enough to bring down a
presidency — and maybe lead
to an unprecedented criminal
prosecution of a former
president — then what are we
to make of the recently
unveiled Obama
administration program of
massively spying on
political opponents in
violation of clearly
established law?
Nation state or script
kiddie? Pointing blame after
a cyberattack was never
easy, but now it's almost
impossible...
And sometimes things can
be far from what they first
seem.
Case in point: Symantec
researchers on Thursday
discovered what they thought
was a nation-state actor
using highly sophisticated
malware and techniques
typically employed by a
government, but was in fact
a low-level cyber-criminal,
who was just out to make a
few bucks. In other words,
what could've easily been
the Russian government
turned out to be a fairly
amateur individual.