The deep freeze gripping much of the US has been blamed on a polar vortex. Here's what that means.
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2Sex5LW
We can update Every Mint Every Time we have long network links ....
Thursday, 31 January 2019
Actor 'tasted brutality of hatred'
Stars support Empire actor Jussie Smollet, the victim of a suspected hate crime in Chicago.
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2CRvIJi
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2CRvIJi
The Afghan Invictus athletes claiming asylum in Australia
The fears of six athletes who claimed asylum in Australia after the 2018 Invictus Games.
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2S8Sgz1
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2S8Sgz1
Zimbabwe women raped as government crackdown continues
Six women tell the BBC they were raped by security forces as part of a government crackdown.
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2CRqD3G
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2CRqD3G
MP defends unmasking shot reporter
Kennedy Agyapong tells the BBC he regrets journalist Ahmed Hussein-Suale’s death, but has a clear conscious.
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2sVKNEY
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2sVKNEY
'Why I fled Saudi Arabia and sought asylum in the UK'
Two Saudis who sought asylum in the UK explain why they risked everything.
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2SdhEnb
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2SdhEnb
Richard E Grant in tears over Barbra Streisand's reply to 1970s fan letter
The actor and superfan was "overcome with emotion" when Streisand replied to his childhood letter.
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2MGAb66
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2MGAb66
The Lord of the Ringos? Peter Jackson to direct a Beatles film
The Lord of the Rings director will use unseen footage of the tense sessions for their final album.
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2SdIgEx
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2SdIgEx
Bulgarians decry ‘eco vandalism’ on coast
Social media outcry puts controversial construction on Bulgaria's Black Sea coast under scrutiny.
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2Uxh9C1
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2Uxh9C1
Why some Japanese pensioners want to go to jail
Japan is in the grip of an elderly crime wave. Poverty and loneliness are two of the possible causes.
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2sUSv2f
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2sUSv2f
How do you compost a human body - and why would you?
A US state could become one of the first places in the world to allow corpses to become fertile soil.
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2S04WbU
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2S04WbU
The Indians sharing their villages with crocodiles
In most places, a crocodile would send people scurrying in fear. But not in this part of India.
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2Sbqv8X
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2Sbqv8X
Maduro and Guaidó: Who is supporting whom in Venezuela?
The international community is split over who it recognises as the country's current president.
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2BbqOqp
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2BbqOqp
Nastya Rybka: Model who got caught up in the Trump-Russia row
The story of Nastya Rybka, who was questioned in a Thai jail by the FBI about the Trump-Russia inquiry.
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2HHJ9kz
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2HHJ9kz
Why Dutch fear Brexit no deal will leave onions to rot
Imagine onions - tonnes of them, rotting in a customs queue. It's a Dutch farmer's Brexit nightmare.
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2DLoiZL
from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2DLoiZL
Breathing LED With Arduino Uno R3
In this lesson, let’s try something interesting –gradually changing the luminance of an LED through programming. Since the pulsing light looks like breathing, we give it a magical name - breathing LED. We’ll accomplish this effect with pulse width modulation (PWM) - Arduino Uno board * 1- USB cabl...By: primerobotics
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from Instructables: exploring http://bit.ly/2BcosHI
Controlling LED by Button With Arduino Uno R3
In this experiment, you will learn how to turn on/off an LED by using an I/O port and a button. The "I/O port" refers to the INPUT and OUTPUT port. Here the INPUT port of the Arduino Uno board is to read the output of an external device. Since the board itself has an LED (connected to Pin 13), you c...By: primerobotics
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from Instructables: exploring http://bit.ly/2BckEGJ
Basement Bouldering Wall
To introduce our kids to rock climbing, we built a small bouldering wall in our basement. There are a lot of great resources for designing and building home rock climbing walls: This REI article is super comprehensive, and I got a lot of inspiration from this I Like to Make Stuff build. I wanted to ...By: jasonluther
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from Instructables: exploring http://bit.ly/2sYCaK6
Cardboard IPhone and Folio Case
Who can resist a cardboard contest? Not me.I made a cardboard iPhone and folio case using a Teva shoebox and the cardboard from a 6 pack of Lagunitas Hop Stoopid Ale. This was my first time making something from cardboard since kindergarten, and on a scale of 1 to 10, I would give it a 3 in terms o...By: SusanYoung1982
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from Instructables: exploring http://bit.ly/2BaNE1o
How To: PINK GLITTER SLIME
Easy-To-Make Pink Glittery Slime In Minutes! I Hope You Enjoy! Approximate Time: 10 minutesMaterials Needed: 1Oz. of School Glue, 1Tsp. of Borax, 3 Drops of Pink Food Dye, 1 Bowl, 1 Mixing Utensil, 1 1/4 Cup of WaterSafety Hazard: Slime is toxic and should not be consumed. Borax can be harmful if ...By: jambajuicer03
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from Instructables: exploring http://bit.ly/2FWr5Sl
Egg Turner for Incubator 45 Degree Rotation
Hi Today I am making a egg turner for incubator which will rotate 360 degree on 45 degree angle which will not only rotate the eggs as well and it's space convininet for small homemade incubator ,if you want to see in detail please watch the video and if you like this tutorial please vote for it. ...By: Umair Workshop
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from Instructables: exploring http://bit.ly/2UyzFtL
How to Make Slime
Ingredients:- One bottle of glue (more glue if you want more slime)- One cup of water - One teaspoon of borax (optional: food coloring)Materials:- a bowl- measuring cups- a teaspoon You are going to pour a bottle of glue into a bowl. If you want more slime, you can use two, three, or even four bot...By: gparkerwong
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from Instructables: exploring http://bit.ly/2Tmjtvd
Almond Flour Cookies
Let’s be honest Cookies are a top favorite piece of dessert which everyone loves. No dessert comes in more flavors, texture,size and shapes and yet they are the simplest to make. As easy as they are to make, cookies are not as healthy as they seem to be. We often want a small treat to please our c...By: anasofimontemayor
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from Instructables: exploring http://bit.ly/2BaNCXk
Homemade Banana Nut Bread
In this instructable I will show you how to make Banana Bread. This banana bread that is made with very little stevia sugar is an easy recipe to make and enjoy with your coffee. I like to make this banana bread because it's been a recipe that my mom has been making for a long time and it is what she...By: catapadillagf
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from Instructables: exploring http://bit.ly/2MFk5K3
Heritage Wool Baby Blanket Quilt
The blanket quilt is made from repurposed, felted wool sweaters; the binding is made from a repurposed, felted wool suit jacket. The blanket has a narrow seam allowance and no backing, the seams provide sensory and tactile stimulation for baby's inquisitive mind and hands. Wool is water resistant...By: BigSkyCntry
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from Instructables: exploring http://bit.ly/2sWvbBp
Hot Chocolate Cookies (Gluten and Dairy Free)
Imagine a mug of rich hot chocolate….in the form of a cookie. Now imagine it is gluten and dairy free! I played around with the ingredients I use to make hot chocolate and ended up with these awesome chocolate cookies. They screamed ice cream sandwiches to me....so I paired them with some non-da...By: GlutenFreeMama
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from Instructables: exploring http://bit.ly/2Gg2YgN
Easy Quilted Cosmetic Bag
This tutorial will show you how to make a quilted cosmetic bag for all of the people that want to create an extraordinary makeup bag. To make this bag you will need: 3 (1/4 of a yard) different fabrics or you can use sewing scraps to customize your bag and pattern Fabric scissors or new scissors t...By: Kenzie TaylorM
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from Instructables: exploring http://bit.ly/2TrRaMc
Mute Your Car's Lock Beep
Some people like having their car beep when they lock or unlock it. Most new cars and trucks have this feature. I do not like this feature. I think it is noise pollution and it draws unwanted attention to you and your car. At first, I was looking at how to disconnect the horn to keep it from be...By: CHARLESCRANFORD
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from Instructables: exploring http://bit.ly/2TiGi2W
Cardboard + Denim Drawer
I've always loved making creative items and crafts, especially by repurposing old materials and giving them a new life. This is a tutorial on how to make a small drawer using cardboard and denim. I personally use it to store supplies and notions for future projects, but the drawer itself could be ...By: TatianaO2
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from Instructables: exploring http://bit.ly/2HIpCAw
Making a Tripod Quick Release Plate
I was recently fortunate enough to acquire an Ender 3 Pro 3D printer. It is an absolutely awesome printer that is super easy to use. The Printer arrives in a few pieces but goes together very easy. After I got done putting it together and doing the obligatory test printing to make sure it was pro...By: Lorddrake
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from Instructables: exploring http://bit.ly/2UsvSOs
Traditional Italian Meatballs in Tomato Sauce and Polenta
This is a dish that brings me back to Sunday dinners with grandma in Italy. Grandma is the one who taught me this traditional recipe from the North of Italy and that’s why it’s so dear to me.Meatballs and Polenta is the traditional family dinner dish. If you’re wondering what Polenta is, it’s simil...By: PNTopo
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from Instructables: exploring http://bit.ly/2Gg2ZRT
5 Tips to Keep an Organized Shop!
This post is sponsored by WD-40. Drills and drivers are the most used battery powered tools in our shop. We like to keep these together, you know? It makes workflow a lot smoother. You go up grab a drill, take a charged battery off the charger and your off. If there is a dead battery on the drill...By: Woodbrew
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from Instructables: exploring http://bit.ly/2FZpIlE
CARDball
How to playThe point is to strike marble to score on opponent's goal if a player strikes the ball and it's not a goal the other player will strike the ball where the ball stopped moving and try to score. When someone scores the player who was scored against will kick off in the center of the feild.M...By: emiliojacques6671
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from Instructables: exploring http://bit.ly/2GbSDSO
Italian Aubergine Parmigiana
This is a tipical dish from the South of Italy. Aubergines are usually fried for this dish, but I’ll make a lighter version with grilled aubergines.First, fun fact: Do you know what gives aubergine its purple color?It’s a powerful antioxidant, nasunin, that is found in the aubergine skin.Aubergines...By: PNTopo
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from Instructables: exploring http://bit.ly/2Ga6FV7
Healthy Granola Bars
In this instructable, I will show you how to create Healthy granola bars with Nuttvia. The reason why I wanted to do this recipe was that I wanted to create a healthier alternative for all those granola bars out there on the market and so that is why I am using Nuttvia. Nuttvia is a hazelnut spread ...By: 19trevino5109
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from Instructables: exploring http://bit.ly/2FZpFX0
Easy to Prepare Spicy Fried Chicken Strips
Why do I want to share my recipe?I really want to share this recipe that has been used by me and my family whenever we are wanting a delicious and easy to prepare meal. This fried chicken recipe has been my favorite for a long time, and since then, I have been improving it almost every time I decid...By: 19zambrano5118
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from Instructables: exploring http://bit.ly/2FZpJpI
How to Install Operating System on Raspberry Pi
A Raspberry Pi is a small computer that can be plugged into a computer monitor and uses a standard keyboard and mouse enables the user to learn more about programming. You can build your own Internet of Things device with it. A Raspberry Pi like the most other computer doesn't work without an Operat...By: mhmolenaar
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from Instructables: exploring http://bit.ly/2DLejDU
Passphrase Generator
(image source Woodcabin Padlock, Creative Commons int)Passwords are the greatest vulnerability in cyber security. We reuse with other websites, we do not alter, and in many cases we do these things because to remember a password that passes the strength test is hard enough to remember, much less all...By: C_Maconroe
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from Instructables: exploring http://bit.ly/2Gg3efL
Sausage, Potato and Kale Soup
Sometimes life can take unexpected turns. Breakups, moving, your favorite show leaving Netflix. But the right comfort food can make all your problems go away. This is why we have sausage, potato, and kale soup. This wonderful food can be cooked easily with hardly any work! You, your friends, and you...By: drawing_beauty_life_hacks
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from Instructables: exploring http://bit.ly/2UnZAEa
Outdoor Epoxy Bar Top With Glowing River
In this instructable, I show you how to make an epoxy bar top using reclaimed wood. The outdoor bar top has a glowing river with embedded fire glass that runs through the reclaimed sinker cypress wood.Below are only some of the things you will learn in this instructable:Mix Resin & Glow PowderConst...By: jeremyhoffpauir
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from Instructables: exploring http://bit.ly/2DJW4yE
Smartphone Controlled RC Car Using Arduino
This Instructable shows how to make a Smartphone controlled Arduino Robot Car.Update on 25th Oct 2016 1. 4WD Robot Chassis kit 2. Arduino Uno 3. LM298 H bridge Module 4. Bluetooth Module HC-05 5. 12v Li-po Battery 6. Male-Female Jumper Wires 7. Male-Male Jumper Wires 8. Duct Tape or any other t...By: TAFHIM BIN NASIR
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from Instructables: exploring http://bit.ly/2UwPtgx
Easy Mini Paper Rose
In this tutorial I’ll show how to create paper flower rose. Paper flowers are great for decorating a space and is much cheaper and long lasting than real flowers. This red paper rose is perfect for a valentine themed décor. Learning how to make paper rose can make or save you tons of cash. A diy pap...By: TravellB
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from Instructables: exploring http://bit.ly/2UunspL
Greeting Cards for Valentine's Day
In this video I’ll show you how to make valentine day card and link you to some additional valentine's day card ideas. A valentine's day card is the perfect way to say I love you. Learn how to create diy greeting cards for valentine's day card with this super easy tutorial. Beautiful handmade valent...By: TravellB
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from Instructables: exploring http://bit.ly/2RZnbyt
Ultimate Chili-Stuffed Cornbread
There are two classic comfort foods for Winter in my house: hearty chili chock full of veggies, beans, and meat, and made-from-scratch cornbread. These dishes are a match made in heaven--but we always ran into a problem. Chili is easy to make in enormous quantity for a week's worth of meals, but tha...By: emilygraceking
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from Instructables: exploring http://bit.ly/2DKGkeH
Light Sensor Circuit | Dark Sensor | Light Sensor | Simple Project
Hello , Today in this video tutorial i am going to show you Step By StepHow to make a light sensor circuit using ldrThis Electronic Project is Very Simple Easy and DIY (Do It Yourself)❖ Please Subscribe / Like Facebook Page ❖► https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCi6ZqREHDIx2xLrC...► https://www.faceboo...By: afzalrehmani
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from Instructables: exploring http://bit.ly/2RrkPTQ
Relief coming for blast-chilled Midwest, but not until after another record-low day - NBCNews.com
Relief coming for blast-chilled Midwest, but not until after another record-low day NBCNews.com
from Top stories - Google News https://nbcnews.to/2HF78kE
Frigid conditions are blamed for as many as nine deaths across the Midwest, and temperatures aren't expected to rise until at least Thursday afternoon.
View full coverage on Google Newsfrom Top stories - Google News https://nbcnews.to/2HF78kE
Schumer urges Coats to stage intelligence intervention with Trump - POLITICO
Schumer urges Coats to stage intelligence intervention with Trump POLITICO
from Top stories - Google News https://politi.co/2RX3gQy
He wants someone to educate Trump “about the facts and raw intelligence”
View full coverage on Google Newsfrom Top stories - Google News https://politi.co/2RX3gQy
Lack of Intelligence - Slate
Lack of Intelligence Slate
from Top stories - Google News http://bit.ly/2WxY1FR
The president spent the morning attacking U.S. intelligence agencies and citing Fox News.
View full coverage on Google Newsfrom Top stories - Google News http://bit.ly/2WxY1FR
Russian Trolls Release Fake Dirt on Mueller - The Daily Beast
Russian Trolls Release Fake Dirt on Mueller The Daily Beast
from Top stories - Google News http://bit.ly/2DLdbQw
Evidence that was reportedly shared only with lawyers representing Russia's Internet Research Agency was altered in a bid to “discredit the investigation,” ...
View full coverage on Google Newsfrom Top stories - Google News http://bit.ly/2DLdbQw
Undocumented worker fired from Trump golf club to attend State of the Union: report | TheHill - The Hill
Undocumented worker fired from Trump golf club to attend State of the Union: report | TheHill The Hill
from Top stories - Google News http://bit.ly/2MIfbMq
Victorina Morales, an undocumented worker who was fired from the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J., after going public about her immigration status ...
View full coverage on Google Newsfrom Top stories - Google News http://bit.ly/2MIfbMq
Federal Judge Blasts PG&E's Commitment To California Wildfire Safety - NPR
Federal Judge Blasts PG&E's Commitment To California Wildfire Safety NPR
from Top stories - Google News https://n.pr/2UrMMwD
A federal judge in California blasted utility giant Pacific Gas and Electric Co. on Wednesday, accusing the beleaguered company of putting profits before ...
View full coverage on Google Newsfrom Top stories - Google News https://n.pr/2UrMMwD
St. Louis Prosecutor Accuses Police of Obstructing Inquiry Into Killing of Officer - The New York Times
St. Louis Prosecutor Accuses Police of Obstructing Inquiry Into Killing of Officer The New York Times
from Top stories - Google News https://nyti.ms/2sZARKA
The top prosecutor in St. Louis has accused the city's Police Department of obstructing the investigation into the killing of an officer whose death last week was ...
View full coverage on Google Newsfrom Top stories - Google News https://nyti.ms/2sZARKA
Sen. Rand Paul awarded more than $580,000 in suit over neighbor's attack - NBCNews.com
Sen. Rand Paul awarded more than $580,000 in suit over neighbor's attack NBCNews.com
from Top stories - Google News https://nbcnews.to/2CTOBv1
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., was awarded more than $580000 in damages and medical expenses in a lawsuit against a neighbor who tackled him. The neighbor's ...
View full coverage on Google Newsfrom Top stories - Google News https://nbcnews.to/2CTOBv1
Parliament Becomes Britain’s New Brexit Casualty - The New York Times
Parliament Becomes Britain’s New Brexit Casualty The New York Times
from Top stories - Google News https://nyti.ms/2G0gQMu
Votes in Parliament have put Britain on a collision course with the European Union over Brexit. Critics say lawmakers failed to take control.
View full coverage on Google Newsfrom Top stories - Google News https://nyti.ms/2G0gQMu
White House's Bolton says he met with Citgo executives - Reuters
White House's Bolton says he met with Citgo executives Reuters
from Top stories - Google News https://reut.rs/2G0IkBU
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - White House national security adviser John Bolton said he had a “very productive meeting” on Wednesday with Citgo's executive ...
View full coverage on Google Newsfrom Top stories - Google News https://reut.rs/2G0IkBU
Extreme Weather Is Already Breaking Records Around The World In 2019 - HuffPost
Extreme Weather Is Already Breaking Records Around The World In 2019 HuffPost
from Top stories - Google News http://bit.ly/2Sf4GVP
In just a few weeks' time, extreme temperatures have smashed records around the world this year, with parts of the Midwestern U.S. seeing the mercury drop as ...
View full coverage on Google Newsfrom Top stories - Google News http://bit.ly/2Sf4GVP
U.S. Asks Western Allies to Help Form Buffer Zone in Northern Syria - The Wall Street Journal
U.S. Asks Western Allies to Help Form Buffer Zone in Northern Syria The Wall Street Journal
from Top stories - Google News https://on.wsj.com/2S2SvMz
The U.S. wants to assemble a coalition of Western nations to create and potentially enforce a new buffer zone in northern Syria, U.S. officials said, but none have ...
View full coverage on Google Newsfrom Top stories - Google News https://on.wsj.com/2S2SvMz
Elon Musk announces Tesla's CFO departure during earnings call - CNET
Elon Musk announces Tesla's CFO departure during earnings call CNET
from Top stories - Google News https://cnet.co/2SfsWaj
With a few minutes to go before Telsa's quarterly earnings call ended, Elon Musk surprised investors with news that chief financial officer Deepak Ahuja will be ...
View full coverage on Google Newsfrom Top stories - Google News https://cnet.co/2SfsWaj
The Hot Topic in Markets Right Now: ‘Quantitative Tightening’ - The New York Times
The Hot Topic in Markets Right Now: ‘Quantitative Tightening’ The New York Times
from Top stories - Google News https://nyti.ms/2G1qVJ6
It's not China. It's not the shutdown's aftermath. The latest obsession occupying the minds of investors is the Fed's plan to reduce the stockpile of bonds it bought ...
View full coverage on Google Newsfrom Top stories - Google News https://nyti.ms/2G1qVJ6
Alibaba shares soar as market looks past the company's record $41 billion spending spree - CNBC
Alibaba shares soar as market looks past the company's record $41 billion spending spree CNBC
from Top stories - Google News https://cnb.cx/2sUbrOF
Alibaba spent a record 278.8 billion yuan or $41.6 billion on various areas of business from original content to product development, which it hopes will set it up ...
View full coverage on Google Newsfrom Top stories - Google News https://cnb.cx/2sUbrOF
China's factory activity shrinks as slowdown worries rise - BBC News
China's factory activity shrinks as slowdown worries rise BBC News
from Top stories - Google News https://bbc.in/2sTvT28
The data comes as several global firms warn China's slowing economy will hit their bottom line.
View full coverage on Google Newsfrom Top stories - Google News https://bbc.in/2sTvT28
A handy list of ways Facebook has tried to sneakily gather data about you - The Next Web
A handy list of ways Facebook has tried to sneakily gather data about you The Next Web
from Top stories - Google News http://bit.ly/2FYyIYf
As we learned last year, Facebook has a habit of stealthily grabbing customer data to improve its own products and services, and then apologizing when the ...
View full coverage on Google Newsfrom Top stories - Google News http://bit.ly/2FYyIYf
New Overwatch map, Paris, goes live on PTR - Polygon
New Overwatch map, Paris, goes live on PTR Polygon
from Top stories - Google News http://bit.ly/2RuBTZf
Blizzard Entertainment released a new map on Overwatch's PTR today. The Assault-style map, Paris, is playable on PC.
View full coverage on Google Newsfrom Top stories - Google News http://bit.ly/2RuBTZf
Puma FI Self-Lacing Sneakers Hands-On - Engadget
Puma FI Self-Lacing Sneakers Hands-On Engadget
from Top stories - Google News https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdA5yxelO2k
With the upcoming release of Nike's $350 Adapt BB, self-lacing shoes are set to become more commonplace, and Puma isn't about to let its rival take all the c...
View full coverage on Google Newsfrom Top stories - Google News https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdA5yxelO2k
Apple Gets Sued Over FaceTime Bug That Lets People Eavesdrop - Bloomberg
Apple Gets Sued Over FaceTime Bug That Lets People Eavesdrop Bloomberg
from Top stories - Google News https://bloom.bg/2BdDSM1
Apple Inc. was sued by a Houston lawyer who claims his iPhone inadvertently allowed an unknown person to eavesdrop on his private conversation with a client ...
View full coverage on Google Newsfrom Top stories - Google News https://bloom.bg/2BdDSM1
Police Release Photos Of "Persons Of Interest" In Jussie Smollett Attack - HuffPost
Police Release Photos Of "Persons Of Interest" In Jussie Smollett Attack HuffPost
from Top stories - Google News http://bit.ly/2G9RgEi
The "Empire" star, who is black and gay, was attacked while walking to his downtown Chicago apartment.
View full coverage on Google Newsfrom Top stories - Google News http://bit.ly/2G9RgEi
‘The Masked Singer’ spoiler: The Unicorn is … - Gold Derby
‘The Masked Singer’ spoiler: The Unicorn is … Gold Derby
from Top stories - Google News http://bit.ly/2SmqrU0
We think we know the real identity of the Unicorn on "The Masked Singer." We studied the clues and her performances. Read our spoiler here.
View full coverage on Google Newsfrom Top stories - Google News http://bit.ly/2SmqrU0
‘The Batman’ To Fly In Summer 2021; Ben Affleck Passes The Torch To Next Generation Of Bruce Wayne - Deadline
‘The Batman’ To Fly In Summer 2021; Ben Affleck Passes The Torch To Next Generation Of Bruce Wayne Deadline
from Top stories - Google News http://bit.ly/2GbGg9p
EXCLUSIVE: Warner Bros. is dating their next rendition of Batman for June 25, 2021. This is the one that Matt Reeves has been attached to as writer and director ...
View full coverage on Google Newsfrom Top stories - Google News http://bit.ly/2GbGg9p
‘The Masked Singer’ spoiler: The Rabbit is … - Gold Derby
‘The Masked Singer’ spoiler: The Rabbit is … Gold Derby
from Top stories - Google News http://bit.ly/2B8AMsE
Before the Rabbit returned for episode 5 of “The Masked Singer” on January 30, we'd seen him sing twice and give two set of clues as to his real identity. At first ...
View full coverage on Google Newsfrom Top stories - Google News http://bit.ly/2B8AMsE
Nick Wright Destroys Critics Of Tom Brady's Super Bowl Record - NESN
Nick Wright Destroys Critics Of Tom Brady's Super Bowl Record NESN
from Top stories - Google News https://foxs.pt/2DLhPht
At this point, Tom Brady haters are hanging on to whatever they can in order to criticize the New England Patriots quarterback. While Brady effectively has left ...
View full coverage on Google Newsfrom Top stories - Google News https://foxs.pt/2DLhPht
In Search of Emiliano Sala - ESPN
In Search of Emiliano Sala ESPN
from Top stories - Google News https://es.pn/2TlF1rZ
The tragic disappearance of Emiliano Sala, bound for new club Cardiff on a single-engine plane, raises the question: How did this happen?
View full coverage on Google Newsfrom Top stories - Google News https://es.pn/2TlF1rZ
Gurley beats Gronk in 'Madden' Super Bowl matchup - Fox News
Gurley beats Gronk in 'Madden' Super Bowl matchup Fox News
from Top stories - Google News https://fxn.ws/2MJ6lOj
First came the "Madden" simulation, which has the Los Angeles Rams edging the New England Patriots in Super Bowl LIII by a score of 30-27. Now, two of the ...
View full coverage on Google Newsfrom Top stories - Google News https://fxn.ws/2MJ6lOj
Dustin Poirier: UFC is ‘No. 1 bullsh*t company,’ demands Conor McGregor or Tony Ferguson next - MMA Mania
Dustin Poirier: UFC is ‘No. 1 bullsh*t company,’ demands Conor McGregor or Tony Ferguson next MMA Mania
from Top stories - Google News http://bit.ly/2RuaoPc
Dustin Poirier is a little frustrated with the current state of the UFC lightweight division, demanding a fight against either Conor McGregor or Tony Ferguson next.
View full coverage on Google Newsfrom Top stories - Google News http://bit.ly/2RuaoPc
Scientists Have Detected an Enormous Cavity Growing Beneath Antarctica - ScienceAlert
Scientists Have Detected an Enormous Cavity Growing Beneath Antarctica ScienceAlert
from Top stories - Google News http://bit.ly/2Ux3fjg
Antarctica is not in a good place. In the space of only decades, the continent has lost trillions of tonnes of ice at alarming rates we can't keep up with, even in ...
View full coverage on Google Newsfrom Top stories - Google News http://bit.ly/2Ux3fjg
Canadian Glacial Melt Uncovers Ancient Landscapes Hidden For 40,000 Years - Tech Times
Canadian Glacial Melt Uncovers Ancient Landscapes Hidden For 40,000 Years Tech Times
from Top stories - Google News http://bit.ly/2Gbp4Rp
The rising global temperature has caused glaciers to melt in the Canadian Arctic, exposing an ancient landscape that has never been seen in 40,000 years.
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David Threlfall
As part of the BBC's Opera season, five creative individuals examine their own encounters with opera. These personal essays reveal the variety of ways in which opera can seduce, fascinate, baffle, frustrate and excite. David Threlfall saw his first opera - Zeffirelli's production of La Boheme - in New York in 1980. Since then his relationship with the art-form has suffered a few disappointments. David Threlfall is one of Britain's most admired and versatile character actors. In 1980 he played the role of Smike in the Royal Shakespeare Company's eight-hour stage version of The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, in both London and New York. He has gone on to play a huge range of roles on stage and in film. His most notable television role was as Frank Gallagher in Paul Abbott's Channel 4 drama Shameless which ran from 2004 to 2013. He is next on screen in the BBC/Netflix drama Troy - Fall of a City, in which he plays King Priam.
from The Essay https://bbc.in/2imK9hH
from The Essay https://bbc.in/2imK9hH
Patricia Duncker: How I Fell in Love with Opera
In an attempt to demystify this huge and multifaceted genre, five creative individuals examine their own encounters with opera. These personal essays reveal the variety of ways in which opera can seduce, fascinate, baffle, frustrate and excite. In the second essay in the series, academic and novelist Patricia Duncker examines the dangerous and seductive ways in which opera can overwhelm the senses. In particular she discusses the power of Benjamin Britten's Death in Venice. Patricia Duncker is the author of five novels including James Miranda Barry and Hallucinating Foucault. Her most recent academic position was as Professor of Contemporary Literature in the Department of English, American Studies and Creative Writing at the University of Manchester. How I Fell in Love with Opera, written and read by Patricia Duncker Produced by Jill Waters A Waters Company Production for BBC Radio 3.
from The Essay https://bbc.in/2yqeUcg
from The Essay https://bbc.in/2yqeUcg
Julian Barnes: Opera - Coming to it Late
Frustratingly banal plots and often incomprehensible lyrics meant that for much of his listening life Julian Barnes had 'a serious problem with opera'. Then all that changed. In an attempt to demystify this huge and multifaceted genre for the BBC's Opera season, five creative individuals examine their own encounters with opera, as an art form and as a life-enhancing and sometimes life-changing emotional experience. These personal essays reveal the variety of ways in which opera can seduce, fascinate, bore, frustrate and excite. Opera - Coming to it Late, written and read by Julian Barnes Produced by Jill Waters A Waters Company Production for BBC Radio 3.
from The Essay https://bbc.in/2hLovA4
from The Essay https://bbc.in/2hLovA4
Modern Weather Forecasts Are Stunningly Accurate
As the sun rose on Wednesday, 26 million Americans peered out their windows onto a land chilled to 20 degrees Fahrenheit below zero. And that’s when the air was still: When the wind picked up, as it did from Chicago to the Dakotas, it could feel like it was 50 below. Boiling water tossed from a pot turned into a cloud of snow before it could hit the ground.
The experience was half Uz, half Oz. But had Dorothy’s house been relocated to Mount Everest, not Munchkinland, her journey still would have been more pleasant than many midwesterners’ Wednesdays. They spent the day essentially shut down, as hundreds of schools, offices, universities, and even an ice castle closed. The National Weather Service advised against “talking” or “taking deep breaths” outside so as to keep delicate lung tissue from freezing on contact.
The vortex was felt nearly across the entire continent. As many as 225 million Americans—from Alabama to Nevada—could have started their 8 a.m. commute in below-freezing temperatures.
It is dangerous, record-breaking, can’t-look-away weather. Yet this cold snap’s arrival was preceded by a marvel so spectacular that we hardly noticed it: It was correctly predicted. As early as a month ago, forecasters knew that colder-than-average weather would likely strike North America this month; a week ago, computer models spit out some of the same figures that appeared on thermometers today.
Meteorologists have never gotten a shiny magazine cover or a brooding Aaron Sorkin film, and the weather-research hub of Norman, Oklahoma, is rarely mentioned in the same breath as Palo Alto. But over the past few decades, scientists have gotten significantly—even staggeringly—better at predicting the weather.
How much better? “A modern five-day forecast is as accurate as a one-day forecast was in 1980,” says a new paper, published last week in the journal Science. “Useful forecasts now reach nine to 10 days into the future.”
The paper is a birthday present from meteorology to itself: The American Meteorological Society turns 100 this year. But it also acts as a good report card on how far weather prediction has come.
“Modern 72-hour predictions of hurricane tracks are more accurate than 24-hour forecasts were 40 years ago,” the authors write. The federal government now predicts storm surge, stream level, and the likelihood of drought. It has also gotten better at talking about its forecasts: As I wrote in 2017, the National Weather Service has dropped professional jargon in favor of clear, direct, and everyday language.
“Everybody’s improving, and they’re improving a lot,” says Richard Alley, an author of the paper and a geoscientist at Penn State.
With the current polar vortex, the first signs came almost a month in advance. On the final day of 2018, scientists detected what they call a “sudden stratospheric warming event,” high above the North Pole. The stratosphere, a layer of air about 20 miles above the surface, was being rocked by waves of warm air from below.
“What happens in the Arctic does not stay in the Arctic,” warned the meteorologist Andrew Freedman at the time. “Sudden stratospheric warming events are known to affect the weather in the U.S. and Europe on a time delay.” The next 60 days would probably be colder than average, he said.
By January 20, much of North America hit its first cold snap of the season. Then, a week ago, the European weather model began to project that a dangerous air mass would descend over the central United States. “It’s safe to say that the [European] weather model cannot get any colder for the Midwest,” said the meteorologist Ryan Maue on Twitter. “Wind chills would be in the -40 degree to -50 degree Fahrenheit range as well. This would be bad … but hopefully the model moderates.”
The model barely budged. On Wednesday morning, Minneapolis recorded a wind chill of 52 degrees below zero.
This kind of pattern—where a seasonal climatic projection (“It will be colder than average at the end of the month”) precedes a definite week-ahead forecast (“It will be 40 degrees below zero on Tuesday”)—will become more common in the years to come. Meteorologists are increasingly uniting weather models and climate models, allowing them to project the general contours of a season as it begins.
“The conventional wisdom was that weather prediction would saturate after a week or so” because the atmosphere is chaotic, Antonio Busalacchi, the president of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, told me. But “new areas of forecasting … really take an Earth-systems-science approach. It’s no longer just [modeling] the atmosphere by itself.”
Understanding months-long events like El Niño, for instance, has allowed meteorologists to go beyond the seven-day forecast. Alley, the Penn State professor, says that he is awed by the new models. Well-studied features of Earth’s climate—like the temperate Gulf Stream in the Atlantic Ocean—emerge in computer models, even though developers have written code that only mimics basic physics. “You translate Newtonian physics into a sphere and get Coriolis [force],” he says. “There’s no line in the code that says, Please make a Gulf Stream. But it is the physics of the Earth, so when you spin it up, the Gulf Stream appears because it has to.”
We are now surrounded by the products of these miraculous models. In 2009, a back-of-the-envelope study estimated that U.S. adults check the weather forecast about 300 billion times per year. Perhaps in all that checking we have forgotten how strange the forecast is, how almost supernatural it is that people can describe the weather before it happens. More than 1,000 years ago, the Spanish archbishop Agobard of Lyon argued that no witch could control the weather because only God could understand it. “Man does not know the paths of the clouds, nor their perfect knowledges,” he wrote. He cited the Book of Job for authority, which asks: “Dost thou know when God … caused the light of his cloud to shine? Dost thou know the balancings of the clouds … ?”
It’s no slight to any whirlwind—arctic, divine, or otherwise—to point out that Americans now certainly do know the balancings of the clouds. There is a basic-cable channel devoted to the topic.
from The Atlantic http://bit.ly/2DImtNl
Swimming With Orcas in Norway
Olivier Morin, a photographer with Agence France-Presse, recently visited northern Norway to spend some time whale-watching and swimming in a frigid fjord with a group of orcas as they hunted for herring. The Reisafjorden region near the city of Tromso remains a “winter playground” for these whales, even as they are pushed farther north every year because warming waters force the herring ever northward in search of spawning areas that are the right temperature—37 degrees Fahrenheit (3 degrees Celsius). Although the orca population in the region is thriving at the moment, Norwegian authorities are considering some regulations to further protect the whales.
from The Atlantic http://bit.ly/2HH2Uca
Why Democrats Picked Stacey Abrams to Deliver Their Trump Counterpunch
Usually, the only things that most Americans can remember about the annual response to the president’s State of the Union address are the memes: the extremely awkward sips of water; the shiny lips and weirdly prominent sports car; the stilted, staged setup. The speaker’s actual remarks, which represent the messaging of the president’s opposition party, are usually secondary—earnest, perfunctory, and then, mercifully, over. The real function of these televised speeches, sandwiched between hours of nitpicking commentary, is to signal that a party has identified its chosen speaker as a rising star.
That’s why the Democrats’ selection of Stacey Abrams to deliver this year’s response is so intriguing. Abrams, who narrowly lost the Georgia governor’s race to the Republican Brian Kemp in November, has perhaps become more prominent and integral to the party since her defeat. The speech will likely function less as an acknowledgment of her potential, and more as a genuine rebuttal to President Donald Trump—one delivered by a politician who’s already become an avatar of effective anti-Trumpism messaging, thanks to her campaign against Kemp, and at a time, days after the government shutdown, when the president is newly vulnerable.
“At a moment when our nation needs to hear from leaders who can unite for a common purpose, I am honored to be delivering the Democratic State of the Union response,” Abrams said in a statement Tuesday, after her speech was announced. “I plan to deliver a vision for prosperity and equality, where everyone in our nation has a voice and where each of those voices is heard.”
Those themes are core pieces of Abrams’s message. On the campaign trail last year, her stump speech was notable for the way it outlined policies in terms of how they’d practically affect voters’ lives and pockets, whether it was connecting a proposed Medicaid expansion to black infant and maternal deaths, or identifying climate change as a culprit in natural disasters in southern Georgia.
Abrams also focused on several issues that are critical to the national political conversation right now, a record she could lean on in trying to create an effective counter to Trump. According to a recent Gallup poll, immigration, health care, and race relations are among voters’ most urgent concerns. In 2018, Abrams became one of the most prominent politicians to promote Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion, and she backed that expansion as a “starting point” for achieving universal health-care coverage. Her immigration platform included opposition to law-enforcement crackdowns on sanctuary cities and undocumented immigrants. And she is—after losing a race haunted by allegations of voter suppression—undoubtedly the national face of the Democrats’ pro-voting-rights movement; her focus on expanding the electorate undergirded the racial-justice platform that was central to her campaign. “Stacey Abrams reflects our party’s shared values of equality and inclusion,” Alabama Representative Terri Sewell, who is leading the House Democrats’ voting-rights efforts on Capitol Hill, said in response to Abrams’s selection.
The invitation to Abrams comes at a critical time for Democrats. The longest government shutdown in history ended just last week, but not before it exposed new weaknesses in Trump’s public support, as well as deep faults in the American economy. Describing why Abrams was chosen to give the Democrats’ address, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer identified a “lack of leadership” from the administration “as American families are still feeling the impacts of [Trump’s] self-imposed shutdown.” While Americans do largely blame the president for the closures, according to public polling, the shutdown has sharply lowered their opinion of government as a whole and their faith in the economy.
Democrats, at this precarious moment, will be trying to deliver a strong, coherent alternative to the chaos emanating from the White House. And they evidently think Abrams can achieve that: She’s functioning as a sort of political leader in exile, commanding influence among Democrats and being tapped to represent the party despite not holding an office or being officially involved in national-committee leadership. And she is considering running for office again; she told me in a recent interview that she’s weighing her options for either a Senate run in 2020 or a gubernatorial rematch in 2022.
[Read: The Democrats’ Deep South strategy was a winner after all]
Abrams is far different from the past two speakers whom the Democrats have chosen to rebut Trump. Last year, Massachusetts Representative Joe Kennedy III was tapped to deliver the counter-speech, but he wasn’t as publicly well known: Though Kennedy was and is a rising star, Abrams has already managed to turn a statewide race into a national profile. In 2017, former Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear rebutted Trump’s first address to Congress. In a speech staged at a diner in coal country, he delivered a symbolic, heavy-handed appeal to white heartland voters that was once thought to be the most viable path forward for Democrats. In contrast to Beshear, Abrams represents a new electoral strategy for the party, rooted in expanding the Democrats’ voting base and deemphasizing the voters who flipped to Trump.
And unlike the previous two speakers, Abrams is also, noticeably, a black woman. She will be the first black woman to ever deliver such an address, and the first black politician since former Representative J. C. Watts in 1997. Her selection suggests that the Democratic Party wants to keep up with its changing coalition. The elected officials in the national Democratic Party are more racially representative than they’ve ever been, more women are in Congress than ever before, and the field of 2020 Democratic contenders already looks to be the most diverse in any major-party presidential primary. But beyond matters of representation, Abrams’s selection signals that the party views her message as the best encapsulation of its vision in the era of Donald Trump—and as the best counterpunch to a president who’s fighting to remain in control.
Elaine Godfrey contributed additional reporting to this article.
from The Atlantic http://bit.ly/2RY1LSm
Michael Cohen Is Ready to Talk Russia to Congress
President Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen lied to Congress about issues central to the Russia investigation out of “blind loyalty” to his longtime boss. But now the man who once said he would take a bullet for Trump plans to correct the record before the House and Senate Intelligence Committees—perhaps giving lawmakers more insight than they’ve ever had into the president’s dealings with Russia before and during the election.
Cohen’s much-hyped public testimony before a separate panel, the House Oversight Committee, was expected to be highly restricted to avoid interfering with Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe, with which Cohen has been cooperating for several months. (Cohen postponed that hearing following attacks from the president and the president’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, on his wife and father-in-law.) But the intelligence-committee hearings will be conducted behind closed doors, giving Cohen the opportunity to have a freer exchange with the members.
[Read: Three remarkable things about Michael Cohen’s plea]
Cohen is willing to answer questions about what he’s told Mueller and other issues related to the ongoing investigation, according to two people familiar with his plans. (They, like other people I spoke with, requested anonymity to discuss the private deliberations.) However, his legal team is also in talks with Mueller’s office to determine whether there are any parameters for his testimony. The House Intelligence Committee is also “in consultation with the special counsel’s office to ascertain any concerns that they might have and to deconflict,” according to a committee aide.
“The reason that he agreed to testify privately for the intelligence committees is, first and foremost, because he owes them,” one of the people familiar with Cohen’s plans said. “He pleaded guilty to lying to them and owes them an apology.” Cohen admitted in court late last year that he lied to Congress when he told them that negotiations to build a Trump Tower Moscow ended in January 2016, and that he hadn’t discussed it much with Trump. In fact, Cohen testified, he agreed to travel to Russia in connection with the Moscow project and took steps to prepare for Trump’s possible trip there after he clinched the Republican nomination.
Cohen is “more open to answering questions” about these and other Russia-related issues than he would have been in a public setting, according to this source, as long as he remains “secure in the knowledge that both committees will protect his testimony and prevent leaks.”
[Read: Michael Cohen takes Mueller inside the Trump Organization]
The Senate panel, which subpoenaed Cohen earlier this month, and its House counterpart declined to preview what questions they intend to ask. But the central purpose of the interviews is for Cohen to correct the record on his previous false statements to the committees about the timing of the Trump Tower Moscow negotiations—and, crucially, whether Trump or anyone in the White House directed him to lie in the first place. BuzzFeed News reported earlier this month that Mueller had evidence that Trump had asked Cohen to lie about the timing of the real-estate deal, prompting the special counsel’s office to release a rare statement contradicting aspects of the story. But House Democrats made it clear that, if it were confirmed that the president had tried to obstruct justice in order to hide his involvement in business negotiations with the Kremlin during the election—while Russia waged a hacking and disinformation campaign to undermine Trump’s opponent—it would be cause for impeachment.
Democratic Representative Adam Schiff, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, told MSNBC on Wednesday morning that the panel expects Cohen to address the Moscow real-estate deal, which was also a potential source of leverage for Russia throughout 2016 as Trump—and his family—kept the negotiations a secret from voters. Cohen admitted late last year to discussing the Moscow deal with Trump’s family members “within” the Trump Organization.
Donald Trump Jr., an executive vice president of the Trump Organization, told the Senate Judiciary Committee that he was only “peripherally aware” of the Moscow deal in 2016. It is not clear what he told the House Intelligence Committee, which has not yet released the transcripts of the closed-door interview. But Cohen’s corrected testimony could illuminate whether other witnesses have been honest during congressional testimony about their role in, or knowledge of, the Trump Tower Moscow negotiations in 2016, and Russia’s interference more broadly.
[Read: Michael Cohen pays the price for his ‘blind loyalty’ to Trump]
“I think this common thread of lying to Congress and particularly to congressional committees may ensnare a number of other potential targets in the special counsel’s investigation,” Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said on Monday. “And it could become a matter of criminal action.” On Friday, the longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone was indicted by Mueller for lying to the House Intelligence Committee about WikiLeaks, prompting Schiff to reiterate that the Intelligence Committee’s “first order of business” once it is constituted—which has been delayed by Republicans—will be a vote to send the official witness transcripts to Mueller. “We will continue to follow the facts wherever they lead,” he said.
from The Atlantic http://bit.ly/2FYG4Ly
Many Families May Need Months to Recover From the Shutdown
Ever since the government shutdown ended last Friday, Yvette Hicks said her cable company, her electric company, the bank that processes her auto-loan payments, and her life-insurance company have been calling her “back to back to back.” They want to know when they’ll be paid.
Hicks, a 40-year-old security guard working as a contractor for the federal government, had been wondering the same thing about her own income, having gone without work or pay during the 35-day shutdown.
During that time, she had to dip into her savings so that the electric company didn’t cut off power to her home in Washington, D.C., and she was forced to ration her children’s asthma medication—they needed it every four hours, but Hicks couldn’t afford to keep up that frequency. With bills piling up over the past month, she estimates that even now that she’s back to work, it’ll take until “the end of March, maybe” for her to get her finances back to where they were before the shutdown.
Hicks is one of the millions of Americans whose livelihoods were upended by the longest government shutdown in U.S. history. Just because that shutdown is over doesn’t mean that it isn’t still shaping the lives of American families, including contractors like Hicks who didn’t work and likely won’t receive back pay, and the roughly 800,000 federal workers who will. The individual stresses—both financial and emotional—may have eased, but they persist even as people return to their working rhythms.
[Read: The shutdown showed how precarious Americans’ finances really are]
The timing for a shutdown is never good, but it was especially bad for Bebe Casey, a 52-year-old businesswoman in New Hampshire. In late December, her mother was in the hospital at the end of her life, and Casey’s husband, a Customs and Border Protection employee, was ordered to continue working, with the expectation of later receiving back pay. The combination of a parent in the hospital and financial uncertainty was taxing. “This has just been a really hard last six weeks,” she told me.
Things turned out all right financially for Casey’s family, thanks in part to the end-of-year bonus she received. “If I hadn’t had that, then we would’ve been late on lots of stuff,” she says. “We were lucky.” Still, she’s a little nervous about upcoming financial obligations, such as making a college-tuition payment for her daughter next week. “We’re gingerly going through day by day right now, still trying to stuff as much money as we can away in case this happens again,” she says.
On the other side of the country, Mel May was experiencing similar uncertainty during the shutdown. May, a 55-year-old employee of the Federal Aviation Administration living in Albuquerque, was also expected to come into work without pay. “It was very stressful,” he said of making sure his bills were paid. He had trouble getting a loan to cover his rent and other bills, and ended up having to borrow money from his girlfriend.
In the end, May didn’t fall behind on any payments. “Everybody worked with me—even Comcast, of all people,” he said. Still, things were tight. He got cleared for unemployment assistance, started looking into getting a new job, and ate frugally—“lots of eggs, lots of oatmeal,” he told me. He’s glad he’ll start getting paychecks again soon.
The people I spoke to for this story told me of the stress they’d experienced during the shutdown and were well aware that they could experience it again soon, if a new agreement to fund the government is not reached by February 15. Yvette Hicks was worried that if she was out of work again, it’d take her even longer to get back on track financially.
Some aftereffects of the shutdown have been subtler, though. One 23-year-old federal contractor—he asked not to be named, for fear of repercussions at work—told me that this early exposure to the potential precarity of government work was discouraging. “For all of the merits of working for the government, it has shown me some of the disadvantages of working on something that’s at the mercy of politics,” he said. The shutdown may have lasted 35 days, but some of its effects will extend well beyond that.
Amal Ahmed contributed reporting to this article.
from The Atlantic http://bit.ly/2TnQVBB
Breslin and Hamill: Deadline Artists Feels Like a Eulogy for Journalism
Breslin and Hamill: Deadline Artists, a new HBO documentary about two of the most celebrated newspapermen of the 20th century, has the passionate, thunderous, and occasionally weepy tone of a good barroom eulogy. Jimmy Breslin and Pete Hamill represent, various interviewees attest, the last of their kind: journalists writing for and about the working man, self-educated voices for New York’s disenfranchised, reporters who also sometimes managed to be poets. Together, they embody the sharp thrill of a time when to cover the news was to be a hard-drinking, iconoclastic, ink-and-grease-stained truth teller. As Spike Lee puts it in one moment, “These guys were like superstars.” Later, Tom Brokaw adds that Hamill was “so authentically male.”
Directed by the journalist Jonathan Alter and the documentarians John Block and Steve McCarthy, Deadline Artists often feels as if it’s eulogizing not just Breslin and Hamill (Hamill is still alive and writing; Breslin died in 2017) but also a golden era of journalism itself. Alter told Page Six that he wanted to capture the heart of a time “when print journalists could be swashbuckling figures”—a moment when Breslin could advertise beer in television commercials and appear on Saturday Night Live, and when Hamill could date Jacqueline Kennedy and Shirley MacLaine at the same time.
With all the hushed reverence, though, comes a sense that something truly valuable has been lost. “These journalists today go to the elite colleges,” the legendary magazine writer Gay Talese says in one interview. Hamill and Breslin, the movie argues, were “anchored in a place and time,” able to tell stories about underserved communities because they themselves were of the people.
A hagiographic documentary certainly has its place—just ask the Academy, which nominated Betsy West and Julie Cohen’s Ruth Bader Ginsburg movie, RBG, for an Oscar earlier this year. It’s just that Deadline Artists often seems enthralled by a version of the narrative that even Breslin and Hamill question in moments, one in which the emptying-out of traditional newsrooms and the checking of anarchic reportorial habits signal a fatal, irreversible decline.
[Read: The media’s post-advertising future is also its past]
“There aren’t any more Breslins and Hamills,” an uncredited voice says in the movie. “This was the last expression of great 20th-century muscular American journalism.” Maybe, but it’s hard not to read “muscular” as a euphemism for something else, some ineffably virile quality that both Breslin and Hamill apparently had in abundance. And the sentiment undermines the astonishing reporting being done every day to expose inequality and injustice in America, in a much more challenging economic climate for news.
When it functions as a dual biography, Deadline Artists is a fascinating film. It’s drawn more to the bombastic, outspoken, abrasive Breslin than the ruminative Hamill, but it makes a case for the ways in which both changed newspaper journalism for the better. They each fell into the profession with a simplicity that would make contemporary J-school students weep—Breslin became a copy boy earning 18 dollars a week, while Hamill, after writing persuasive letters to the editor of the New York Post, was personally invited to join the editorial team, after which his first story ran on page 1.
The writers made a name for themselves by seeking out lesser-told stories, Breslin in the bars and back rooms of Queens, and Hamill across America, Europe, and Asia. Breslin’s coverage of John F. Kennedy’s assassination changed the shape of what newspaper journalism looked like by focusing on the men at the edges of history—the gravedigger at Arlington National Cemetery, the emergency-room doctor who tried in vain to save the 35th president’s life. In 1968, Breslin and Hamill were in the immediate vicinity of Robert F. Kennedy when he was murdered; Hamill summed up the scene by writing, “We knew then that America had struck again.”
Both men inevitably became celebrities, lauded for their tenacity, their commitment (Hamill, while sparring with the new owner of the Post, refused to step down and oversaw proofs from the diner by the office), and their fearlessness. Breslin’s ego seems to inflate rather unappealingly at this point in the film, when he’s shooting commercials for Grape-Nuts and corresponding personally with the Son of Sam killer. Called to ask whether he’s covering a house fire in which two people have died, he imperiously replies, “More must die before Breslin goes.” And, in his ugliest moment, he publicly berates a young, female, Korean American reporter who’s criticized one of his columns for being sexist, unleashing a tirade of racial slurs that gets him suspended for two weeks.
Deadline Artists dutifully includes this stain on Breslin’s biography, even if it subsequently drafts family members and friends to explain it. “I think the suspension probably killed him because I don’t think he had a bigoted bone in his body,” his son says. “Jimmy is an impulsive guy from the streets, and I thought he just made a huge mistake,” Gloria Steinem adds. “[Jimmy] doesn’t like when other people criticize him,” Breslin’s second wife, Ronnie Eldridge, explains. “He was terrible in many ways,” recalls The New York Times’s Gail Collins, “but his sense of sympathy was just amazing.” The filmmakers briefly interview Ji-Yeon Yuh, the woman whom Breslin verbally abused, but they seem more interested in propping up Breslin’s bona fides as a champion of the disenfranchised than in considering, even fleetingly, how the ribald newsroom culture the movie glorifies might also have helped keep a generation of talented reporters on the margins.
Alter, Block, and McCarthy are convincing in their argument that Breslin and Hamill shaped the way news stories are told, inspiring a generation to try to emulate their melding of dogged reporting and writerly craft. Breslin’s coverage of the emerging AIDS crisis in New York when few other reporters dared is held up as yet another example of how he foregrounded people whose plight merited national attention. But the implication underlying Deadline Artists’ swooningly nostalgic portrait of a bygone era—that things were better then—is undercut by one of its subjects. Journalism, Hamill says, is “always being enriched by the new people who come.” It’s a much-needed counterpoint in a film that could use more of them.
from The Atlantic http://bit.ly/2TjW7X6
How Do Plants Grow in Space?
Earlier this month, tiny green plants sprouted on the moon.
The plants arrived as cotton seeds, tucked inside of Chang’e 4, a Chinese spacecraft that had landed, in a historic first, on the far side of the moon, the side that never turns toward Earth. The seeds came with the comforts of home: water, air, soil, and a heating system for warmth. Huddled together, the seedlings resembled a miniature, deep-green forest. A hint of life on a barren world.
And then, about a week later, they all died.
Lunar night had set in. Without ample sunlight, surface temperatures near the spacecraft plummeted to –52 degrees Celsius (–62 degrees Fahrenheit). The sprouts’ heating system wasn’t designed to last. The plants froze.
Outer space, as you might expect, is not kind to plants, or people, or most living things, except maybe for tardigrades, those microscopic creatures that look like little bears. If you stuck a daisy out of the International Space Station and exposed it to the vacuum of space, it would perish immediately. The water in its cells would rush out and dissipate as vapor, leaving behind a freeze-dried flower.
[Read: A new clue in the search for forests on distant planets]
China’s experiment marked the first time biological matter has been grown on the moon. (There is biological matter on the moon already, in what NASA politely refers to as “defecation collection devices.”) But plants have blossomed in space for years. They just need a little more care and attention than their terrestrial peers.
The first to flourish in space was Arabidopsis thaliana, a spindly plant with white flowers, in 1982, aboard Salyut, a now defunct Russian space station. The inaugural plant species was chosen for practical reasons; scientists call Arabidopsis thaliana the fruit fly of plant science, thanks to a fairly quick life cycle that allows for many analyses in a short time.
Now, plants grow on the International Space Station, humankind’s sole laboratory above Earth. They are cultivated inside special chambers equipped with artificial lights pretending to be the sun. Seeds are planted in nutrient-rich substance resembling cat litter and strewn with fertilizer pellets. Water, unable to flow on its own, is administered carefully and precisely to roots. In microgravity, gases sometimes coalesce into bubbles, and overhead, fans push the air around to keep the carbon dioxide and oxygen flowing.
The most advanced chamber on the station, about the size of a mini fridge, has precise sensors monitoring the conditions inside, and all astronauts need to do is add water and change filters. Scientists back on the ground can control everything, from the temperature and humidity to levels of oxygen and carbon dioxide.
Plants did not evolve to exist in this unusual setup. But astronauts have grown several varieties of lettuce, radishes, peas, zinnias, and sunflowers, and they do just fine. “Plants are very adaptive, and they have to be—they can’t run away,” says Gioia Massa, a scientist at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center who studies plants in microgravity.
Scientists were surprised to learn that the lack of gravity, the force that has shaped our biological processes, doesn’t derail plants’ development. On Earth, plants produce a filigree-like pattern of roots, as they grow away from their seeds in search of nutrients. Scientists had long assumed the movements were influenced, in part, by the force of gravity. On the International Space Station, roots exhibited the same pattern, without gravity as a guide.
“Plants don’t really care about the gravity so much if you can get the environment right,” Massa says.
For NASA, the growth chambers on the space station are the predecessors of extraterrestrial farms beyond Earth. If human beings ever travel to another planet, they will need enough food for the journey. NASA has spent years perfecting thermo-stabilized or freeze-dried entrées and snacks for astronauts on the International Space Station, from scrambled eggs to chicken teriyaki. The meals are meant to last, but they wouldn’t survive the long journey to Mars, says Julie Robinson, the chief scientist for the International Space Station.
“We don’t have a system today that would preserve all the nutrients in food for all that time, even if it was frozen,” Robinson says.
Future Mars astronauts will likely bring with them an assortment of seeds, a Svalbard-like vault to kick-start the first generations of crops. None will be able to grow in Martian soil, which resembles volcanic ash; it’s devoid of the organic matter—formed on Earth by generations of decomposed plants—that supports life. It also contains chemical compounds that are toxic to humans. Astronauts could flush out the toxins with their own chemical solutions and convert the soil into something workable, but it may be easier to replicate the growth chambers on the International Space Station instead.
On Mars, plants will likely grow in climate-controlled greenhouses, from nutrient-rich gels and under bright lighting, with water delivered through liquid solutions at their roots or by a fine mist released from the ceiling. And anyone living on Mars will need many of these alien gardens; you can’t grow a salad from a petri dish.
Astronauts have already made a space salad. In 2015, astronauts on the space station were allowed to try the leaves of a red romaine lettuce that was cultivated in NASA’s first fresh-food growth chamber. They added a little balsamic dressing and took a bite. “That’s awesome,” the NASA astronaut Kjell Lindgren said then. “Tastes good.”
No one on Earth has sampled a space vegetable yet, according to Massa. Some plants grown on the station are sent down to the ground for study in the lab, but they usually come back frozen or preserved in a chemical solution. “Frozen would be better, but I don’t think lettuce popsicles will be very popular anytime soon,” she says.
NASA scientists are thinking about more than nutrition in these experiments. Growing plants just for the sake of growing plants is quite nice. Research has shown that gardening is soothing and can be beneficial for good mental health. Future deep-space astronauts, cooped up in a small spaceship for years with the same people, will need all the soothing activities they can find. Plants, especially flowers, grown not for consumption but for decoration may help far-flung astronauts feel connected to the comforts of Earth.
“There’s a great deal of joy in growing and watering the plants and producing a flower,” Robinson, the ISS scientist, says. “There can also be some real sadness if plants you’ve been cultivating are not successful and are dying on you.”
Anyone who has enthusiastically purchased a succulent and witnessed it inexplicably wilt days later might relate. Imagine the magnitude of that disappointment on Mars, where the closest store is all the way across the solar system, and the only option is to grow another one.
from The Atlantic http://bit.ly/2SeuSju
The Generation of Grandparents Who Keep Their Grandchildren Afloat
My husband and I have been pretty good at saving money over the years, which means that we have enough of a cushion to start passing along some of it to our children and grandchildren while we’re alive, rather than leaving it behind as their inheritance. If we live another 20 years, give or take, as the actuarial tables say we might, our offspring in 2040 might have less need for the extra money than they do today, when they’re young. We’re living by the slightly morbid axiom my mother would invoke whenever she gave me a big check for a birthday or an anniversary: “I’d rather give it with a warm hand than a cold one.”
Grandparents across the U.S. are making similar calculations. According to the AARP, almost all American grandparents say that they offer some sort of financial support to their grandchildren, typically in the form of helping pay for their education (53 percent), living expenses (37 percent), or medical bills (23 percent). A recent survey by TD Ameritrade found that the average grandparent couple spend $2,383 a year on their grandkids. This figure is undoubtedly skewed by the wealthy (and disproportionately white) people who give their grandkids the largest amounts—but even grandparents who are just scraping by try to share what they can. And it doesn’t include other ways of helping beyond giving money, such as by being unpaid daycare providers.
Intergenerational gift-giving has grown substantially in the past decade or so. One analysis of Census Bureau data found that between 1999 and 2009, the amount that Americans over 55 gave to their adult children increased by more than 70 percent. During that period, the amount given specifically for primary- and secondary-school tuition and school supplies—that is, to be spent on the grandkids—nearly tripled.
[Read more: The age of grandparents is made of many tragedies]
Financially, my husband and I are lucky; we’ve been careful with our spending, yes, but more than that, we’ve had relatively well-paying, stable careers. Most Americans our age aren’t so lucky: Just 39 percent of working adults in the United States have managed to save enough to get themselves through five years of retirement, let alone give a leg up to their progeny.
But even without adequate savings, parents and grandparents these days are quick to offer monetary help to younger generations—sometimes raiding the nest egg they might need for themselves. “Financial managers advise the elderly to hold on to the money they’ve saved, to use it to care for themselves in old age, to avoid becoming the responsibility of their children,” Kathleen Gerson, a sociology professor at New York University, told me. But many grandparents have a hard time listening to this advice, she said, because they can see that their children and grandchildren are even more financially insecure than they are. Giving money serves two functions, Gerson said—it’s “a way of expressing love,” and a way to help ensure “that your children’s children will have a decent spot in the world.”
But no matter how well intentioned these transactions are, the fact that many young Americans turn to the Bank of Grandma and Grandpa is evidence of their struggles and the lack of an adequate safety net to keep them afloat. Giving money to grandchildren is also one way that well-off families pass on privilege and wealth not just to the next generation, but to the one after that—a way that Americans stay rooted in the social stratum into which they were born.
Gerson pointed out that robust social programs benefiting grandparents might be what make them feel able to offer support in the first place. In the 20th century, poverty among the elderly was “greatly erased,” she told me, “thanks to policies such as Social Security.” According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a left-leaning think tank, 9 percent of Americans older than 65 have an income below the poverty line—but if Social Security didn’t exist, that number would balloon to 39 percent.
Yet while poverty among the elderly has plummeted, childhood poverty has held steady—as programs like food stamps and Aid to Families With Dependent Children have been overhauled and the cost of college has skyrocketed. According to the National Center for Children in Poverty, children younger than 18 are more than twice as likely to be poor as adults older than 65. That stark difference in their fortunes makes it hard for grandparents to turn away from the youngest generation, whose needs are so obvious. As Gerson put it, grandparents are “stepping into the void” created by the loss of social safety nets.
[Read more: The crushing logistics of raising a family paycheck to paycheck]
Stepping into that void most enthusiastically are grandparents of color, according to a 2012 study by the AARP. African American and Latino grandparents were more likely than their white counterparts to spend money on schooling: 65 percent of African American grandparents and 58 percent of Latino grandparents helped pay for their children’s education, compared with 53 percent of all grandparents polled. African American grandparents were also far more likely than other groups to assist with everyday living expenses. They were also more likely to be a little bit indulgent. “I give to my grandkids because they ask for things,” said 52 percent of African Americans and 43 percent of Latinos, compared with about 30 percent of grandparents overall.
While older Americans are dealing with their own financial woes—insufficient savings, for instance, and a mountain of medical bills—they still tend to feel more secure than their children, for whom pension plans and health-care coverage in old age are even more uncertain. Indeed, today’s grandparents might be the last generation to feel as if they have more economic wiggle room than their kids do. Older Baby Boomers, who are now in their late 60s and early 70s, grew up in a time of economic expansion and relative job security, when Americans could still earn a solid middle-class income with just a high-school degree. That places them in a better position to share the wealth with their families than Gen Xers, when the majority become grandparents.
But today’s grandparents are probably not quite as financially secure as they think they are, according to Teresa Ghilarducci, an economist at the New School and the author of How to Retire With Enough Money. Many of them have inadequate insurance for unexpected medical bills, especially long-term care, she told me, and they might not realize that “their costs for house cleaning and personal services are likely to go up as they become more fragile.” A lot of people have trouble understanding what retirement really costs and how much to save, Ghilarducci said. (Her rule of thumb: Savings should equal eight to 10 times your annual salary preretirement.) Even worse, if a recession happens in the next couple of years, she told me, it could reduce elders’ retirement money (from savings and part-time work) by as much as 20 to 25 percent.
While wealthier Americans can blithely give away money to their kids and grandkids without thinking twice, many working- and middle-class Baby Boomers struggle to help out. The TD Ameritrade survey found that one in four grandparents had to dip into savings to give money to grandchildren. And about 8 percent said that the desire to offer financial help to the youngest generation was leading them to put off retirement.
We do it anyway, often against financial analysts’ advice, because it’s hard to resist giving money to the children right in front of us rather than socking it away for a future that no one can foresee. It’s a sign of what Gerson calls “family cohesion”—the urge to help the grandchildren we love, even if we then ignore our own future needs, when we sense they lack something that we can provide.
from The Atlantic http://bit.ly/2RrSSel
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