"The Mega Millions prize has grown again to an estimated $1.35 billion after there was no winner of the lottery’s latest giant jackpot."
A short course on art appreciation. "Wanting to see something beautiful is nothing to be "snuffed at,' (Jessica Lynne) adds. 'We all have an aesthetic perspective and beauty is so important to how we live and how we make ourselves in the world'… Either way, there's no right way to go through an art museum, says (PJ) Policarpio — so just follow your interests." Also, just because "everybody" loves it, that doesn't mean you have to as well. But we suffer from a poor education where things only have one right meaning that will be on the test. That you must like what the instructor likes or you're wrong. I know some people who don't want to go to museums, concerts or plays because they don't want to be "wrong." There is no test. Love what you love. Saying, "this makes me happy" is enough, although I will say that exploring why something makes you happy is a worthwhile exercise. As someone who goes to museums, plays, and concerts (of all stripes) and has a nasty habit of listening to other people, yes, a lot of people get it wrong. Including some people who should know better. And many people skim the information placards and that's their level of understanding.
"Kansas water experts are sounding an alarm decades in the making: Farmers and ranchers in the state’s western half must stop pumping more water out of a vast aquifer than nature puts back each year or risk the economic collapse of a region important to the U.S. food supply." We're boned.
"The rocket was set to make history, carrying satellites on what would be the first-ever orbital launch from the U.K. on Monday night. But Virgin Orbit says its LauncherOne rocket 'experienced an anomaly' just before it could deliver its payload, and the craft was lost." The achieved space but were unable to make their orbit.
"A comet known as C/2022 E3, marked by its bright green nucleus and long faint ion tail, will be on display in the Earth sky later this month — possibly for the first time ever or at least for thousands of years."
"One of the longstanding arguments against renewable energy like wind and solar is that it's not as reliable as conventional power plants. But the Christmas Eve rolling blackouts in North Carolina turned that conventional wisdom on its head… Single-digit temperatures across the region froze instrumentation and sensing lines and caused other mechanical problems that reduced output at several of Duke Energy's gas- and coal-powered plants." Funny how they forget to mention their own fragility. Don't worry, they're still going to blame it on renewables.
"The USDA says the best way to reduce food waste "is to not create it in the first place." But what does that actually entail?… Morning Edition spoke with Dzung Lewis and Emmy Cho, both chefs and YouTubers, about small steps people can take at the supermarket and in the kitchen to eat more sustainably — and creatively."
"Thousands of nurses at New York City hospitals went on strike Monday morning. The labor action has already begun to disrupt health care services at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx and Mount Sinai Hospital in Harlem, where about 7,100 members of the New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA) could join the picket line… The nurses are striking as they negotiate for higher pay and increased staffing in their first new contracts since the COVID-19 pandemic began. NYSNA members have reached contract agreements with several other hospitals across the five boroughs in recent days, narrowly avoiding similar strikes."
"The good news is… RSV cases have been falling steadily since the end of November, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention… At the same time, the flu… looks like it's finally receding in most places, according to the latest data out Friday from the CDC… The virus posing the biggest threat right now is — you guessed it — the one that causes COVID-19."
"First lady Jill Biden is having surgery on Wednesday after doctors found a small lesion above her right eye, the White House said… The lesion was found during a routine skin cancer examination, and President Biden accompanied her to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, where she is having it removed in a routine procedure known as Mohs surgery." I've had two Mohs surgeries. I wish Dr. "Jill" the best with hers. Fuck cancer.
"The new Dungeons & Dragons Open Gaming License, a document which allows a vast group of independent publishers to use the basic game rules created by D&D owner Wizards of the Coast, significantly restricts the kind of content allowed and requires anyone making money under the license to report their products to Wizards of the Coast directly, according to an analysis of a leaked draft of the document, dated mid-December." Wow. WoC just rolled a natural 20 on their attempted backstabbing of themselves. I mean, sure, you want to have some control over your IP, and there are a ton of new technologies that need addressing. Also, some of these changes are in the best interest of the continued growth and enjoyment of the game. However adding some of these compliance issues will create a nightmare for the smaller creators and most definitely for WoC who will now have to create a library of documents, handle issues of compliance, and auditing. The volume of that will be staggering. Also the explicit rights grab is not a big incentive. If they wanted to outline a boiler plate licensing agreement, yeah, sure. And in some fashion this is a legal protection for WoC developed materials (in the same way that fan fiction affects authors and how most authors explicitly state they do not read their fan fiction). But to state they have the right to reproduce successful works for free, wow. Just wow.
"In-N-Out Burger is 'double-doubling' down on growing its business, announcing it would open new locations in Tennessee, the farthest east the company has ever gone."
"What do all these innovators have in common? They were all immigrants to the United States… Many studies over the years have suggested that immigrants are vital to our nation's technological and economic progress. Today, around a quarter of all workers in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields are immigrants." A new research paper again demonstrates that immigrants are a driving force in our economy and technical leadership (although that leadership has been suffering since the late 90s).
"It’s a sentiment being echoed by conservative officials in red states across the country. The indefinite academic appointments that come with tenure — the holy grail of university employment — have faced review from lawmakers or state oversight boards in at least half a dozen states, often presented as bids to rein in academics with liberal views."
"More Americans are leaning on their credit cards in the face of rising prices. And as interest rates continue to climb, that debt is getting a lot more expensive… The average credit card user was carrying a balance of $5,474 last fall, according to TransUnion, up 13% from 2021."
"The world’s largest aircraft fleet was grounded for hours by a cascading outage in a government system that delayed or canceled thousands of flights across the U.S. on Wednesday."
"A kerfuffle about whether British actor Benedict Cumberbatch will have to pay reparations to descendants of slaves in Barbados made headlines this week. It's still unclear who exactly may become subject to legal action to atone for atrocities of slavery. But online buzz over famous Brits' ties to slavery, like Cumberbatch's, put wider attention on the fight for reparations in the Caribbean."
"Elon Musk has urged a federal judge to shift a trial in a shareholder lawsuit out of San Francisco because he says negative local media coverage has biased potential jurors against him."
"A white state lawmaker in Montana is questioning whether land set aside long ago for Native Americans should exist anymore." Lordy lordy. Can opened. Worms everywhere.
"California police were more than twice as likely to use force against Black residents than white residents during traffic and pedestrian stops in 2021, according to a new report on racial profiling… The annual report from a state board also found that law enforcement searched Black people at 2.2 times the rate of white people, and that Black youths ages 15 to 17 were searched at nearly six times the rate of white teenagers. Latino residents were stopped and subjected to force at 1.4 times the rate of white people, and Latino youths were searched at nearly four times the rate of white youths."
"A Virginia teacher who was critically injured when she was was shot by a 6-year-old student in Newport News is showing signs of improvement as authorities struggle to understand how a child so young could be involved in a school shooting, the city’s mayor said Saturday."
"Russian forces are escalating their onslaught against Ukrainian positions around the wrecked city of Bakhmut, Ukrainian officials said, bringing new levels of death and devastation in the grinding, months long battle for control of eastern Ukraine that is part of Moscow’s wider war."
What happens when you sit military leaders in a room? "Drone advances in Ukraine have accelerated a long-anticipated technology trend that could soon bring the world’s first fully autonomous fighting robots to the battlefield, inaugurating a new age of warfare." The sum of all their fears.
"Attorney General Merrick Garland has assigned the U.S. attorney in Chicago to review documents marked classified that were found at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement in Washington, two sources with knowledge of the inquiry told CBS News. The roughly 10 documents are from President Biden's vice-presidential office at the center, the sources said. CBS News has learned the FBI is also involved in the U.S. attorney's inquiry." With a well reasoned section on how this differs from the Trump documents, although the GOP is trying to make them equivalent.
"Florida lawmakers will move to increase state control of Walt Disney World’s private government, according to a notice published Friday, the latest development in a feud over a law critics have dubbed 'Don’t Say Gay.'" So they're going to try and take the government responsibilities over, but not the debt? Well, they can try.
"The House of Representatives has approved the rules package for the 118th Congress in a near party-line vote, in what marked the first legislative test of newly elected Speaker Kevin McCarthy's narrow GOP majority… The full written agreement has not been made public. But it's clear that key provisions could empower the conservative wing of the party and ultimately weaken the office of the speaker." And the first thing out the door, transparency. That document should be public. There is no reason for it not to be.
"The federal government is on track to max out on its $31.4 trillion borrowing authority as soon as this month, starting the clock on an expected standoff between President Joe Biden and the new House Republican majority that will test both parties’ ability to navigate a divided Washington, with the fragile global economy at stake." Here we go again.
"Allen Weisselberg, the decades-long chief financial officer at former President Donald Trump's family business, was sentenced Tuesday to five months behind bars for financial crimes he committed while working as a top executive there… He also will serve five years' probation and pay some $2 million in penalties and back taxes."
"Echoing Bolsonaro's false claims of electoral fraud, thousands of Bolsonaro supporters ransacked the nation's Congress, Supreme Court and presidential office on Sunday, leaving a path of destruction, in stunning scenes reminiscent of the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol insurrection."
"Long before Sunday's shocking attack on Brazil's Congress and other government buildings, warning signs on social media pointed to possible violence by backers of former President Jair Bolsonaro — one of several important parallels with the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol two years ago." You know, besides some of the same people being involved. They are learning and changing.
"Bullets flew through one home’s front door and garage. At another home, three bullets went into the bedroom of a 10-year-old girl in a series of shootings that had at least one thing in common: They targeted the homes or offices of elected Democratic officials in New Mexico."
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