Just a little advance notice, don't expect posting over the weekend or next week. We should return to normal (for the various definitions of normal) after Memorial Day. I hope you have a good one if you are here in the US.
"Starliner is scheduled to lift off atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Thursday at 6:54 p.m. EDT (2254 GMT), kicking off an uncrewed mission to the International Space Station known as Orbital Flight Test-2 (OFT-2)."
"The engineering team with NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft is trying to solve a mystery: The interstellar explorer is operating normally, receiving and executing commands from Earth, along with gathering and returning science data. But readouts from the probe’s attitude articulation and control system (AACS) don’t reflect what’s actually happening onboard."
"An unusual artwork in the Sculpture Garden on the National Mall also makes unusual sounds: archaic and uncanny… It's an old-fashioned steam calliope, an instrument once commonly seen in carnivals and on riverboats many decades ago. But this calliope was designed in 2018 by a leading American artist, Kara Walker, and plays music composed by Jason Moran, a luminary in the world of jazz."
"Last week, Virginia Beach (VA) schools voted to remove Gender Queer from shelves. It came after school board member Victoria Manning complained about it and several other books within the schools. After the initial review of the book and several others, Manning appealed the decision made to keep the book and after reconsideration, the book was pulled… Now a Virginia lawyer is stepping in to take the decision further: he’s filing a suit against the school and against the Barnes & Noble store in Virginia Beach." Of course it was going to escalate beyond the schools. (Grokked from Seanan McGuire)
"There's a monkeypox outbreak in the United Kingdom, Portugal, Spain and other European countries. The outbreak is small — so far 68 suspected cases, including eight in England and 20 in Portugal. Cases in Canada and a case in the U.S. have also been reported… But health officials have little clue where people caught the monkeypox virus. And there's concern the virus may be spreading through the community — undetected — and possibly through a new route of transmission." Insert dramatic music here.
"The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is now investigating 180 cases of children who suddenly developed severe hepatitis across 36 states and territories, an increase of 71 cases since the public health agency’s last update earlier this month."
"The infant formula industry is a multi-billion dollar business dominated by a handful of firms. In the U.S., just four companies control about 90% of the market, including Abbott Nutrition — the firm behind the shuttered Michigan plant… These companies operate a relatively small number of formula factories in order to maximize efficiency and keep their production costs low." Remember how capitalism was supposed to save us?
"Even with widely available vaccines and newly effective treatments, residents of counties that went heavily for Donald Trump in the last presidential election are more than twice as likely to die from COVID-19 than those that live in areas that went for President Biden. That's according to a newly-updated analysis from NPR, examining how partisanship and misinformation are shaping the pandemic."
"Though it's impossible to know exactly what will happen to abortion access if Roe v. Wade is overturned, demographer Diana Greene Foster does know what happens when someone is denied an abortion. She documented it in her groundbreaking yearslong research project, The Turnaway Study and her findings provide insight into the ways getting an abortion – or being denied one – affects a person's mental health and economic wellbeing."
"A South Florida school district said it is launching a comprehensive investigation into a photo showing students spelling out a racial slur that was shared online Monday… The Martin County School District confirmed that the photo with the six students spelling out the racial slur was authentic, according to a statement from the district."
"Walmart said some of its more price-sensitive customers are beginning to trade down to private-label brands, while Home Depot emphasized the resiliency among its customer base, a sizable percentage of which is professional home builders and contractors… The reports came after Amazon in late April flashed warning signs for the retail industry when it booked the slowest revenue growth for any quarter since the dot-com bust in 2001 and offered up a bleak forecast."
"Stocks wavered in afternoon trading on Wall Street Thursday as persistently high inflation continues to weigh on the economy and keeps major indexes mired in a deep slump."
"The problems began when Grubhub, the food delivery platform, began advertising a $15 credit for New Yorkers from 11am-2pm. Demand surged and at one point there were 6,000 orders a minute coming through the app… Then it appeared to crash." Oopsie.
"A benchmark ESG stock index has removed Tesla Inc., sparking a debate about which companies do — and don’t — pass muster with socially aware investors."
"Israel will not launch a criminal investigation into the killing of the US-Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Aqleh, which Palestinian officials and witnesses have blamed on Israeli soldiers… In a statement released on Thursday, the Israel Defense Forces claimed that because Abu Aqleh was killed in an 'active combat situation', an immediate criminal investigation would not be launched, although an 'operational inquiry' would continue."
"The Ukrainian city of Mariupol is now in Russian hands, after more than two months of bitter fighting and constant Russian shelling that destroyed massive swaths of the city and killed thousands of civilians, according to local officials… Ukraine formally declared an end to its combat mission in Mariupol late Monday. Evacuations of Ukrainian soldiers from the Azovstal steel plant, Ukraine's last military holdout, began earlier that day."
"Russia says it has sent 900 Ukrainian soldiers to a former prison colony in a Russia-controlled part of Donetsk… Meanwhile, the war in Ukraine is likely to continue throughout the summer and possibly beyond, despite signs that parts of the country are returning to some normalcy, Ukraine’s presidential advisor Oleksii Arestovych said, according to NBC News."
"One of the reasons Putin invaded Ukraine with President Joe Biden in the White House was that he expected the US to 'sue for peace' and thought it would be better to deal with Biden than trying to negotiate with someone like Trump, whom the Russian leader had 'to explain everything to all the time,' Hill, who served as the top Russia advisor on the National Security Council under Trump, said Tuesday at a Chicago Council on Global Affairs event." (Grokked from Laura J Mixon)
"China is in talks with Moscow to buy cheap Russian oil for its strategic petroleum reserves, Bloomberg reported on Thursday… Discussions between the two have been taking place at government level, with limited involvement from oil firms, people with knowledge of the situation told the newswire."
"The case highlights the thorny legal ground the U.S. is finding itself on as it tries to seize assets of Russian oligarchs around the world. Those intentions are welcomed by many governments and citizens who oppose the war in Ukraine, but some actions are raising questions about how far U.S. jurisdiction extends."
"Former President George W. Bush was criticizing Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday when his old nemesis, the verbal slip, struck again. Bush eventually condemned Putin's invasion of Ukraine — but not before he condemned 'a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq.'" Paging Dr. Freud…
"About two-thirds of Americans say they do not support overturning Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court decision that made abortion legal in the United States, according to the latest NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll… Seven-in-10 U.S. adults, however, say they are in favor of some degree of restrictions on abortion rights. That includes 52% of Democrats." There's a whole book that could be written on that difference. But somehow the anti-abortion people (who, to be clear, endorse a total ban without exemptions on "abortion" or what they think is "abortion" - which includes most contraceptives) convinced those who say, "you know, we shouldn't allow abortion for Downs babies" that they're part of the pro-life movement instead of being squarely in the pro-choice side.
"Raffensperger is running for re-election as Georgia’s secretary of state and Trump is seeking to oust him from office. He wants to replace him with Jody Hice, a Republican congressman who has said the election was stolen and joined efforts to overturn it. It’s one of several races across the country in which Trump is seeking to install allies in important election administration positions in which they could throw out the results of a future election."
"Orban has been criticized as a white ethno-nationalist authoritarian. He's restricted Muslim immigration and LGBTQ rights while building a close relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Many American conservatives, however, see Orban's Hungary as a kind of anti-woke paradise." And CPAC is having a gathering in Hungary to learn how to be even bigger shitstains on the fabric of America.
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