"The weather was getting worse in southern Florida on Tuesday morning as Tropical Storm Elsa began lashing the Florida Keys, complicating the search for survivors in the condo collapse and prompting a hurricane watch for the peninsula’s upper Gulf Coast."
"When NASA sent the Ingenuity helicopter to Mars, it was gamble. Now it's pushing its limits, flying fast and reaching new heights. NASA announced on Monday Ingenuity successfully completed its ninth and 'most challenging' flight yet."
"Singapore researchers have developed a smart foam material that allows robots to sense nearby objects, and repairs itself when damaged, just like human skin." Well, not "just like" human skin, because skin regenerates, this foam just remolds itself.
"Tantalizing evidence has been uncovered for a mysterious population of 'free-floating' planets, planets that may be alone in deep space, unbound to any host star. The results include four new discoveries that are consistent with planets of similar masses to Earth, published today in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society."
"In August 1974, the CIA produced a study on 'climatological research as it pertains to intelligence problems'. The diagnosis was dramatic. It warned of the emergence of a new era of weird weather, leading to political unrest and mass migration (which, in turn, would cause more unrest). The new era the agency imagined wasn’t necessarily one of hotter temperatures; the CIA had heard from scientists warning of global cooling as well as warming. But the direction in which the thermometer was travelling wasn’t their immediate concern; it was the political impact. They knew that the so-called “little ice age”, a series of cold snaps between, roughly, 1350 and 1850, had brought not only drought and famine, but also war – and so could these new climatic changes."
"Mercy Springfield is treating more than 100 patients for COVID-19, and the hospital is running short on ventilators… As of July 5, the hospital reports more than 115 COVID-19 hospital admissions. Mercy is running around 50 ventilators, according to Mercy Chief administrative officer Erik Frederick… As a result, the hospital is bringing in ventilators from surrounding Mercy hospitals, including Northwest Arkansas and St. Louis."
"Shrinkflation, or downsizing, is probably as old as mass consumerism. Over the years, Dworsky has documented the downsizing of everything from Doritos to baby shampoo to ranch dressing. 'The downsizing tends to happen when manufacturers face some type of pricing pressure,' he says. For example, if the price of gasoline or grain goes up."
"Oil producer group OPEC has been plunged into crisis, with bitter infighting between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates raising questions about the future of the energy alliance… OPEC and non-OPEC partners, a group of some of the world’s most powerful oil producers, abruptly abandoned plans to reconvene on Monday after last week’s meetings unexpectedly failed to broker a deal on oil production policy. The group did not set a new date to resume talks."
"Between 800 and 1,500 businesses around the world have been affected by a ransomware attack centered on U.S. information technology firm Kaseya, its chief executive said on Monday."
"France has hit back at a new Russian law ordering French champagne makers to label their bottles as sparkling wine… France has strict rules protecting its bubbly, meaning to be called champagne it must be from the French region that shares the name… But under Russia's new law, only local producers can call their drinks 'shampanskoye' - the Russian equivalent of champagne." There was this running gag in the original Star Trek where Ensign Chekov would state how of course he knew about some technology because "it was invented in Russia."
"Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones has turned down a tenure offer from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and will instead accept a faculty position at Howard University, the historically Black institution in Washington, D.C." Well played, Howard University. Well played.
"'They started engaging with citizens of Philadelphia, who were none too happy about what they were saying. These males felt threatened, and, at one point, somebody in their crowd threw a type of smoke bomb to cover their retreat, and they literally ran away from the people of Philadelphia,' said Philadelphia Police Officer Michael Crum." You don't bring that shit to Philly.
"The U.S. left Afghanistan’s Bagram Airfield after nearly 20 years by shutting off the electricity and slipping away in the night without notifying the base’s new Afghan commander, who discovered the Americans’ departure more than two hours after they left, Afghan military officials said."
"I have found no single answer to why we lost the war. While various explanations address different parts of the puzzle, the one I want to highlight here can perhaps be seen most clearly in the conversations I’ve had with the Taliban themselves, often in their native Pashto. 'The Taliban fight for belief, for janat (heaven) and ghazi (killing infidels). … The army and police fight for money,' a Taliban religious scholar from Kandahar told me in 2019. 'The Taliban are willing to lose their head to fight. … How can the army and police compete?'" I have a simpler explanation, just like Vietnam, we refused to understand the country and instead imposed our value structure on our strategic decisions.
"By 11:30 p.m. on Monday, the Gun Violence Archive reported 189 people killed and 516 injured in shootings over the course of a 72-hour period starting Friday. In total, there were more than 540 shootings over the holiday weekend, the organization reported."
"Amid mounting concern about a fresh wave of pro-Trump violence in August, more than a dozen current and former Capitol Police officers, Capitol security officials, lawmakers and aides tell CNN that not nearly enough has been done to address the security failures exposed by the January 6 attack on the US Capitol six months ago."
"Interviews with diehard Trump fans suggest that the riot denialism is working. Many refuse to condemn the insurrectionists who beat police officers, smashed windows and called for then Vice-President Mike Pence to be hanged. The swirl of conspiracy theories, combined with Trump’s deluded claims of a stole election, raise fears of a replay that could be even more violent."
"MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell has named the date on which he believes former President Donald Trump will take the impossible step of being reinstated as president: August 13."
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