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Nov 15, 2020

Bob HarigESPN Senior Writer

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Senior golf writer for ESPN.com

Covered golf for more than 20 years

Earned Evans Scholarship to attend Indiana University

AUGUSTA, Ga. -- The stories are legendary, and not all that flattering. Dustin Johnson and his brother, Austin, look like an excellent team now, a Masters green jacket and a ridiculously good 2020 golf year amid a pandemic all the proof you need.

But when Dustin decided to hire his brother full time to be his caddie in 2013, the reviews were not so good. Using a family member as a fill-in on the bag is one thing; to entrust him with what has become a big-business gig is quite another.

And given some of Johnson's high-profile, final-round missteps over the years, the move seemed even more curious. The belief was that the care-free, sometimes aloof Johnson needed a steadying influence, an experienced caddie who would guide him through golf's minefields.

"You ever hear of that movie, 'Dumb and Dumber?''' one prominent player asked during a practice round with Johnson several years ago. He then pointed to Dustin and Austin and smiled.

No malice was meant, and certainly all of the players in the game are aware of Johnson's immense talent, the stuff that was on full display this week at Augusta National, where the golfer won his second major championship by capturing the Masters in record fashion, setting a new mark at 268, 20 under par.

The first hug afterward went to Austin, who has come of age just as his brother has in recent years, forming a partnership that is now quite formidable, as Johnson has a remarkable 24 PGA Tour wins at age 36.

"When I started, I was more of a buddy, someone for him to hang out with,'' Austin said beside the Augusta National putting green before the green-jacket ceremony. "I'm a decent player. I know the game. But being a top caddie? Not even close.

"But I was a sponge. If I got close to [Jim] Bones Mackay [ Phil Mickelson's former longtime caddie], I wouldn't leave his side. I'd ask him everything I could. John Wood [another longtime caddie]. At these team events. I just learned. And earned [Dustin's] trust. And it's gotten to where now he's leaned on me pretty heavily out there. I'm just glad it has worked out the way it has.''

Austin has become a big part of his brother's success. They work hard together on green reading, and Austin has been there to prod Dustin into working harder on that part of his game, an aspect that at times has held Dustin back.

And there is no denying the results.

Johnson became the first No. 1-ranked player in the world to win the Masters since Tiger Woods did it in 2002. His win at Augusta was his fourth of 2020, including the Tour Championship, which gave him the PGA Tour's FedEx Cup title. Since the beginning of 2015, Johnson has won 15 times worldwide, including the 2016 U.S. Open.

"It's unbelievable having my brother on the bag,'' Johnson said. "He's a big help, too. He reads the greens a lot for me. He does a great job reading them. I read them, too, but he definitely helps. He's really good at it. I just love experiencing all these moments with him. I wouldn't want it any other way.''

Johnson has always had a reputation of someone who might not have cared enough. Or worked hard enough. Or harnessed his amazing talent. Throw in a caddie who might not have the chops to step in, and there was potential for underachievement.

At times, Dustin fed into the narrative that his brother was more hindrance than help. Most of it was in fun, some of it simply exaggeration. But there were stories of getting simple math wrong to figure out yardages, and all manner of other foibles.

In 2019, when a new version of the Rules of Golf came out, Dustin noted at the year-opening event in Hawaii that he had yet to really study them, that he was asking for a printout -- and that he'd be making sure Austin got a copy. When asked how he expected that to go, Dustin said: "Probably not very well.''

Just two months ago, there was an issue at the U.S. Open in which Austin apparently lost his yardage book. It seems that book had fallen to the bottom of the bag. Not wanting to dump out all the clubs, Dustin said they located a backup.

"It was from last week,'' Dustin said, joking. "But it worked out well.''

Truth is, Dustin Johnson is more than confident in his brother. And he doesn't mind making fun of him.

"He's smarter than you think,'' said Rory McIlroy, who played with Johnson during the first two rounds. "He's switched on, more than he lets on, more so than everyone thinks.''

Johnson used to employ a couple of professional caddies. Bobby Brown -- who, as it worked out, was caddying for Sungjae Im in the same group in the final round Sunday at this Masters -- was on his bag for several years, including in 2010 when Johnson shot a final-round 82 at the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach after holding the 54-hole lead. Brown was there later that year at the PGA Championship, where a huge mistake on the 72nd hole led to another blown opportunity: Johnson didn't realize he was in what was considered a bunker at Whistling Straits and grounded his club.

Whether those two things led to a change, Johnson hired veteran Joe LaCava -- who had worked two decades for Fred Couples -- in 2011. But at the end of that year, Tiger Woods lured LaCava away, and Johnson was again in flux. It wasn't until a couple of events in late 2013 that he went with his brother full time.

"I think that the job that two of them have done, the team that the two of them have become this year has just been phenomenal,'' said Claude Harmon III, Johnson's coach. "It's been easy for everybody to look at the way DJ plays and just go, 'Well, you know, anybody can caddie for DJ.' If you talk to the caddies out here on tour, they all say that Austin has done a good job.

"If you look at what they've done on the greens, they've started to get into that routine every single time, and I think that's been huge for their confidence. I think the work that those two have done, it's just been amazing.''

More people than expected surrounded the 18th green as Johnson put the finishing touches on his victory. The tournament went without spectators due to the pandemic, but approximately 800 Augusta members, their guests, volunteers and media formed a circle around the green.

And when Johnson walked off, there was two-time champion Bubba Watson, wearing his green jacket, to greet him and welcome him to the club.

"I've been dreaming of putting that jacket on my whole life,'' Johnson told him.

Johnson, who went with a size 42 long, now has 24 PGA Tour victories, a number surpassed by only Woods (82) and Mickelson (44) among active players. And a Masters victory goes a long way toward validating that U.S. Open triumph four years ago at Oakmont, the lone major that was haunting him because he failed to add to the total.

This weekend, Johnson finally converted when holding at least a share of the 54-hole in a major; before this Masters he was 0-for-4. He's a Hall of Famer no matter how you look at it, and there is no reason there cannot be bigger things ahead.

But for a guy who grew up in nearby South Carolina, it's hard for it to get bigger than the Masters. He's now got a lifetime invitation to one of the game's most revered places.

"I've never had this much trouble gathering myself,'' Johnson said following the green-jacket ceremony, tears forming as he could not get the words out.

Off to the side, Woods beamed. He had helped Johnson with the jacket in his role as defending champion, then gave heartfelt hugs to Johnson's manager, David Winkle, and Austin Johnson. As he watched Dustin Johnson struggle with his words, Woods welled up, as well.

It was a victory that was a long time coming. And it came with a family member who turned from liability into huge asset.

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How two brothers went from 'Dumb and Dumber' to winning the Masters

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Nov 15, 2020 Bob HarigESPN Senior Writer Close Senior golf writer for ESPN.com Covered golf for more than 20 years Earned Evans Scholarship to attend Indiana University AUGUSTA, Ga. -- The stories are legendary, and not all that flattering.

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in U.K. puppies are harder to get because of the pandemic. Because of this back handed/illegal puppy selling and puppy thefts have gone up.

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The U.K. is facing a major puppy shortage during the COVID-19 pandemic fueling a rise in the illegal puppy trade, animal charities have warned.

People have increasingly turned to animals during the nationwide lockdown to provide them with comfort and support, with the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA), which operates in England and Wales, noticing a 650 percent rise in searches on its website for "puppies near me."

Not only has that sent puppy prices soaring, with some breeders demanding up to £10,000 ($13,000) for a single puppy, it has also meant a sharp rise in the number of animals being imported into the country from abroad. As a result, the number of dogs with illnesses coming into the country has also increased at a time when a second nationwide lockdown has been imposed to stop the spread of the virus.

Wayne May, coordinator for DogsLost, a lost and found dog service in the U.K., tells Newsweek that the situation is getting worse every day.

"They're not the only animal being used but they are high on the list that's driven the price up of dogs," he says. "We are selling out and what we're experiencing now is illegal puppy breeders bringing in puppies from abroad with various diseases and also a high rise in people's dogs being stolen and they are being stolen for breeding."

May says his charity has noticed a 70 percent rise in the number of dogs being reported as stolen this year compared to last year and among the most in-demand dogs are Cocker Spaniels and Labradors. Not only has there been a rise in thefts but, for May, it has also meant breeders and sellers demanding sums of money for dogs previously unheard of.

"The prices I've actually seen are £5000 to £7000 ($6,500 to $9,200) but I have heard up to £11,000 ($14,492) being paid for a puppy."

Although the price of dogs varies depending on their breed, age and other factors, according to the RSPCA, French bulldogs which normally cost between £1,500 and £2,000 ($2,000 and $2,600) are now being sold for £7,000 ($9,200).

A BBC freedom of information request showed that five policing areas in England saw a double-digit increase in the number of dog thefts reported between January and July 2020, compared with the previous year. According to the latest figures from the Kennel Club, the U.K.'s largest organization devoted to dog health, welfare and training, only 22 percent of stolen dogs are reunited with their owners.

May warned not only of a proliferating network of smuggling routes across Europe to satisfy record demand but also of dogs bringing in diseases such as canine parvovirus, concerns that the RSPCA agrees with.

Dr. Sam Gaines, head of companion animals at the RSPCA told Newsweek: "There are not enough puppies in the UK to meet this demand, we're now seeing a worrying trend in dogs being bred and imported from outside of the U.K." She says that 3.7 million people visited the charity's website between March and August, looking for pets to rehome, compared to 1.7 million over the same period last year.

The number of puppy import licenses have also doubled during the lockdown period, according to Dr. Gaines. According to the latest figures from PDSA, the U.K.'s leading vet charity, 26 percent of the UK adult population have a dog with an estimated population of 9.9 million pet dogs

"We are very concerned about the importation of puppies or dogs that are coming in from other countries," she says. "The main reason being is that we just don't know what conditions those dogs are being bred in and what they're then having to endure with the very long journey to actually get into the U.K.

"You end up sadly with quite a few puppies that are coming in who have got fleas already but also because of the stress of the environment that they've been bred in and raised in and because of the journey they are more likely to be susceptible to behavior problems when they grow up as well."

Both Dr. Gaines and May also fear that when lockdown restrictions are eased and when people return to work, many will be unable to look after their new pets, raising the likelihood of them being abandoned. May says: "They're now coming in daily. Before, we'd only get one or two a month, we're now getting calls daily. People who've gone back to work don't want the animal and inevitably it's going to happen with dogs."

People need to think long and hard about whether they can take on the responsibility of looking after a dog beyond just a pandemic, warns Dr. Gaines. She says: "What they really need to make sure is that they can actually provide for a puppy and they have to think beyond lockdown and the pandemic.

"Six-to eight months ago, people would probably never have thought of getting a puppy but circumstances have changed now with people staying at home. It might seem like a really good idea to bring one into your home and, in some cases, it probably is providing they can actually fulfill the responsibility and commitment of having a dog over a period of 12 years. If people really are thinking of buying one now, they have to be super, super careful to make sure that they don't get caught out by someone who is acting irresponsibly or illegally."

In the meantime, May thinks the solution to the rising number of dog thefts and trade in illegal puppies is for stiffer fines and harsher penalties to be imposed to deter those willing to break the law. The RSPCA also called on people to be extra cautious when buying puppies to make sure they are not being taken advantage of by those who had imported puppies illegally or have been running illegal puppy farms.

"As the RSPCA, we always advocate rehoming rather than buying a puppy or dog but if people do want to buy then we would really strongly recommend that use a tool called the Puppy Contract and this is a tool that you can get online, it's free gives you a whole set of questions you need to ask a breeder and checks that you need to make," said Dr. Gaines.
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U.K. Faces Major Puppy Shortage As Animal Theft Rockets

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The U.K. is facing a major puppy shortage during the COVID-19 pandemic fueling a rise in the illegal puppy trade, animal charities have warned. People have increasingly turned to animals during the nationwide lockdown to provide them with comfort and support, with the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA), which operates in England and Wales, noticing a 650 percent rise in searches on its website for "puppies near me."

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Moderna Inc. reported its Covid-19 vaccine was 94.5% effective against Covid-19, results indicating the shot can protect people from contracting the disease with symptoms. Here's what we know and don't know.

When could the Moderna vaccine become available?

As soon as next month. Moderna says it expects to ask U.S. Food and Drug Administration to authorize use by early December. It is unclear how long the agency will take to make a decision, and the agency is expected to first ask an outside panel of experts to weigh in. Yet federal officials have said it could get a green light to go into distribution that month, if everything checks out. One key issue researchers and regulators are waiting on: proof the vaccine is safe. So far, subjects have reported only mild or moderate side effects, such as fatigue and redness at the injection site. Before making a judgment on safety, the FDA wants to see how half of the trial's 30,000 subjects fare for at least two months on the two-dose regimen.

When would people start getting vaccinated?

Vaccinations could start in December, if the shot is authorized. Yet initial supplies will be very limited. Moderna says it expects to have 20 million doses ready to ship by the end of the year, enough supply of the two-dose shot for 10 million people. That means the first to get the shots will probably be people at the highest risk of Covid-19 with symptoms, like doctors and nurses on the front lines treating coronavirus patients. How the vaccine will be rolled out is still unclear, however, as the U.S. hasn't completed recommendations. A National Academy of Medicine panel recommended people whose health conditions put them at high risk of severe Covid-19, elderly in nursing homes and prisoners should be next in line. Teachers and transportation workers would follow.

What does this mean for the timing of reopenings?

Return to a normal kind of life will likely take months. Even if Pfizer Inc. and Moderna vaccines begin distribution before year's end, the shots won't be widely available until some time next year, probably spring or summer, mostly due to production lag times. As a result, precautions such as mask-wearing and social distancing will continue to be key to stopping the spread of the virus. "It's not going to be flipping a switch and everything going back to normal," said Dr. Saad Omer, director of the Yale Institute for Global Health. He doesn't expect large groups of people could safely congregate before early 2022, even with vaccines. "It will be gradual."

What does this mean for other Covid-19 vaccines in development?

Moderna's results, similarly to those announced last week by Pfizer, advance the new technology of mRNA that was in development for years but yet to be approved for use. Other leading vaccines developed by AstraZeneca PLC, Johnson & Johnson and Novavax Inc. don't use mRNA-based technologies, but they target the spike protein of the coronavirus that is also targeted by mRNA vaccines. The Moderna and Pfizer effectiveness results might augur well for shots generally targeting the spike protein, but we won't know how the other vaccines will perform in late-stage testing until their makers report results over the coming months. "They're all pretty much concentrating on the spike protein and that seems to have been the right thing to have selected," said Paul Duprex, director of the University of Pittsburgh Center for Vaccine Research.

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Moderna's Covid-19 Vaccine: When Could It Be Ready and Everything Else You Need to Know

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Moderna Inc. reported its Covid-19 vaccine was 94.5% effective against Covid-19, results indicating the shot can protect people from contracting the disease with symptoms. Here's what we know and don't know. When could the Moderna vaccine become available? As soon as next month. Moderna says it expects to ask U.S.

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https://www.themunyconservancy.com/ https://www.texasmonthly.com/the-culture/save-muny/

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While uncommon, an expert at Texas Parks and Wildlife says there's no reason to be concerned.

AUSTIN, Texas - Turtles and fish are commonly found in Austin's Lady Bird Lake, but it's not often you'll find an alligator basking on a log with some turtles.

The four-legged reptile caught Anna Eulo's eyes on July 6 as she and a friend kayaked near Peace Point just west of Longhorn Dam.

"I couldn't believe it at first. I really didn't think it was an alligator. My mind might have [gone] to, like, iguana at first, but as we got closer, we saw clearly that it was an alligator," Eulo said.

She said the alligator got back in the water as soon as her friend snapped a Live Photo of it on his iPhone.

"It's not common, but I wouldn't say it's out of the ordinary, either," Texas Parks and Wildlife Department alligator program leader Jonathan Warner said.

There are roughly 500,000 alligators in Texas, he said, although they're mostly found in the eastern part of the state and in the coastal marshes in the southern part of the state.

Warner has an idea of how the alligator may have arrived in Austin.

"It's not impossible that it's made its way up the Colorado River or was maybe displaced due to some type of a flooding event. I would say more likely it was dumped by someone that had it as a pet," he said. "It does happen, unfortunately, sometimes where someone has one as a pet and gets a little bit too big for its aquarium, so it gets dumped into an area like this."

The alligator in the photo appears to be about 2-3 feet long, and it's not old enough to reproduce yet, Warner said. He doesn't expect it to stick around.

"Younger alligators, in general, in a lot of habitats don't have really tight home ranges, so they move around a lot," he said. "I wouldn't be surprised where the next time we get a good cold snap up there, it'll just kind of [move] its way down the river and head for a little bit of a warmer climate."

Another possible gator sighting
Another possible gator sighting? 🐊 KVUE viewer Es Pea said she spotted this creature four days ago near the Emma S. Barrientos Mexican American Cultural Center. Last week, KVUE confirmed an alligator was spotted in Lady Bird Lake on July 6. MORE: https://www.kvue.com/article/news/local/kayakers-spot-alligator-in-austin-lady-bird-lake/269-7c7664f6-293b-4869-bb22-72160296d454
Posted by KVUE on Monday, July 20, 2020

But if it does stick around, he said kayakers, paddleboarders and people walking their dogs along the lake shouldn't be too concerned. Reminder: It is not legal to swim in Lady Bird Lake.

"Alligators, by nature, are actually very timid, docile creatures. Even as adults they often go undetected in habitats that they're at. Obviously, like any wild animal, it's a good idea to just use common sense," Warner said. "Don't approach them. Don't try to feed them. Don't try to catch them or harass them in any way. Normally, everything works out great."

TONIGHT AT 10 ON @KVUE: Kayakers spotted this alligator in Austin's Lady Bird Lake just west of Longhorn Dam near Peace Point last week. 🐊

I spoke with an alligator expert at @TPWDnews to find out how common they are here and whether people should be concerned. pic.twitter.com/3Jpm3lNkQr
- Pattrik Perez (@PattrikPerez) July 16, 2020

Eulo was a little freaked out when she saw the alligator, but it won't stop her from getting back on the water.

" I'm originally from the East Coast, too, so I've never even seen ... those animals are very exotic to me," she said. "It was very cool."

If you happen to find an alligator where you normally wouldn't expect to find one, report the sighting to your local county game warden.

The department has a nuisance alligator control program. If the alligator is deemed a public safety issue or if it has been fed and has lost its fear of humans, TPWD can remove the alligator.

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Kayakers spot alligator in Austin's Lady Bird Lake

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While uncommon, an expert at Texas Parks and Wildlife says there's no reason to be concerned. AUSTIN, Texas - Turtles and fish are commonly found in Austin's Lady Bird Lake, but it's not often you'll find an alligator basking on a log with some turtles.

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What will be happening with spirit days and pep rallies

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What will be happening with spirit days and pep rallies

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Extremely rare white giraffe gets tracker after poachers killed its family 

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Extremely rare white giraffe gets tracker after poachers killed its family 

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An extremely rare white giraffe has been fitted with a tracking device for its protection after its family was killed by poachers.

The giraffe lives in the Ishaqbini Hirola Conservancy in southeast Kenya and has a rare genetic condition called leucism that causes partial loss of pigmentation in its skin. It was fitted with a tracking device on one of its horns on Nov. 8, the Northern Rangelands Trust said in a statement Tuesday.

The trust says it's the world's only white giraffe, although another was spotted in Tanzania in 2015.

The device will send hourly updates on the animal's whereabouts, so rangers can monitor its movements on a daily basis and keep it safe from poachers.

The unusual coloration makes the animal dangerously vulnerable to poachers in the wilderness.

Two other white giraffes in the conservancy, a female and her calf, were killed by poachers in March, the trust said, and concerns are mounting for the remaining animal.
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The three white giraffes were "an immense source of pride in the Ishaqbini community" and made international headlines over the years, it added.

"The giraffe's grazing range has been blessed with good rains in the recent past and the abundant vegetation bodes well for the future of the white male," said Ahmed Noor, manager of the Ishaqbini Hirola Community Conservancy.

Giraffes are the world's tallest mammals, reaching a height of more than 18 feet.

The African Wildlife Foundation estimates the species has lost 40 percent of its population in just 30 years, and recent reports show poaching and wildlife trafficking are contributing to this decline.

There are more than 68,000 giraffes in the world, the foundation said. The International Union for Conservation of Nature classifies the species as vulnerable.

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Extremely rare white giraffe gets tracker to protect it from poachers

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An extremely rare white giraffe has been fitted with a tracking device for its protection after its family was killed by poachers. The giraffe lives in the Ishaqbini Hirola Conservancy in southeast Kenya and has a rare genetic condition called leucism that causes partial loss of pigmentation in its skin.

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Tornadoes

What is a tornado?
A tornado is a violent rotating column of air extending from a thunderstorm to the ground. The most violent tornadoes are capable of tremendous destruction with wind speeds of up to 300 mph. They can destroy large buildings, uproot trees and hurl vehicles hundreds of yards. They can also drive straw into trees. Damage paths can be in excess of one mile wide to 50 miles long. In an average year, 1000 tornadoes are reported nationwide.

How do tornadoes form?

Most tornadoes form from thunderstorms. You need warm, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico and cool, dry air from Canada. When these two air masses meet, they create instability in the atmosphere. A change in wind direction and an increase in wind speed with increasing height creates an invisible, horizontal spinning effect in the lower atmosphere. Rising air within the updraft tilts the rotating air from horizontal to vertical. An area of rotation, 2-6 miles wide, now extends through much of the storm. Most strong and violent tornadoes form within this area of strong rotation.

Click Here to learn more about tornadoes from NOAA.

What are some other factors for tornadoes to form?
Several conditions are required for the development of tornadoes and the thunderstorm clouds with which most tornadoes are associated. Abundant low level moisture is necessary to contribute to the development of a thunderstorm, and a "trigger" (perhaps a cold front or other low level zone of converging winds) is needed to lift the moist air aloft. Once the air begins to rise and becomes saturated, it will continue rising to great heights to produce a thunderstorm cloud, if the atmosphere is unstable. An unstable atmosphere is one where the temperature decreases rapidly with height. Atmospheric instability can also occur when dry air overlays moist air near the earth's surface. Finally, tornadoes usually form in areas where winds at all levels of the atmosphere are not only strong, but also turn with height in a clockwise or veering direction.

What do tornadoes look like?
Tornadoes can appear as a traditional funnel shape, or in a slender rope-like form. Some have a churning, smoky look to them, and other contain "multiple vortices", which are small, individual tornadoes rotating around a common center. Even others may be nearly invisible, with only swirling dust or debris at ground levels as the only indication of the tornado's presence.

What is a funnel cloud? A funnel cloud is a rotating cone-shaped column of air extending downward from the base of a thunderstorm, but not touching the ground. When it reaches the ground it is called a tornado.

It is not fully understood about how exactly tornadoes form, grow and die. Tornado researchers are still trying to solve the tornado puzzle, but for every piece that seems to fit they often uncover new pieces that need to be studied. How do tornadoes stop?

A supercell thunderstorm is a long-lived thunderstorm whose updrafts and downdrafts are in near balance. These storms have the greatest tendency to produce tornadoes that stay on the ground for long periods of time. Supercell thunderstorms can produce violent tornadoes with winds exceeding 200 mph.
What is a supercell thunderstorm?

A mesocyclone is a rotating vortex of air within a supercell thunderstorm. Mesocyclones do not always produce tornadoes.
What is a mesocyclone?

A wall cloud is an abrupt lowering of a rain-free cumulonimbus base into a low-hanging accessory cloud. A wall cloud is usually situated in the southwest portion of the storm. A rotating wall cloud usually develops before tornadoes or funnel clouds. What is a microburst?
A microburst is a downdraft (sinking air) in a thunderstorm that is less than 2.5 miles in scale. Although microbursts are not as widely recognized as tornadoes, they can cause comparable, and in some cases, worse damage than some tornadoes produce. In fact, wind speeds as high as 150 mph are possible in extreme microburst cases.
What is a wall cloud?

A waterspout is just a weak tornado that forms over water. They are most common along the Gulf Coast. Waterspouts can sometimes move inland, becoming tornadoes causing damage and injuries.

What is a waterspout?

What is hail?
Hail is created when small water droplets are caught in the updraft of a thunderstorm. These water droplets are lifted higher and higher into the sky until they freeze into ice. Once they become heavy, they will start to fall. If the smaller hailstones get caught in the updraft again, they will get more water on them and get lifted higher in the sky and get bigger. Once they get lifted again, they freeze and fall. This happens over and over again until the hailstone is too heavy and then falls to the ground.

What is the largest hailstone recorded in the United States?
According to the National Weather Service, the largest hailstone is 8 inches in diameter and weights approximately 2 pounds. It fell in Vivian, South Dakota on July 23, 2010.
A gustnado is a short-lived, relatively weak whirlwind that forms along a gust front. A gust front is the surge of very gusty winds at the leading edge of a thunderstorm's outflow of air. Gustnadoes are not tornadoes. They do not connect with any cloud-base rotation. But because gustnadoes often have a spinning dust cloud at ground level, they are sometimes wrongly reported as tornadoes. Gustnadoes can do minor damage.

What is a gustnado?
A landspout is a very weak tornado that is not associated with a wall cloud or a mesocyclone. It is the land equivalent of a waterspout.

What is a landspout?
A dust devil generally forms in the hot sun during the late morning or early afternoon hours. These are mostly harmless whirlwinds and are triggered by light desert breezes that create a swirling plume of dust with speeds rarely over 70 mph. These differ from tornadoes in that they are not associated with a thunderstorm (or any cloud) and are usually very weak.

What is a dust devil? Tornadoes can happen at any time of the year and at any time of the day. In the southern states, peak tornado season is from March through May. Peak times for tornadoes in the northern states are during the summer. A few southern states have a second peak time for tornado outbreaks in the fall. Tornadoes are most likely to occur between 3 p.m. and 9 p.m.

The geography of the central part of the United States, known as the Great Plains, is suited to bring all of the ingredients together to forms tornadoes. More than 500 tornadoes typically occur in this area every year and is why it is commonly known as "Tornado Alley". Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas and Louisiana all make up Tornado Alley. When are tornadoes most likely to occur?

Where are tornadoes most likely to occur?

Know the Lingo

TORNADO WATCH - Tornadoes are possible in your area. Stay tuned to the radio or television news.
TORNADO WARNING - A tornado is either on the ground or has been detected by Doppler radar. Seek shelter immediately!

Click Here to see if there are any active warnings in your area.

Know the Facts
Tornadoes can occur at any time of the year. nd winds less than 110 mph.

No terrain is safe from tornadoes.

Never open windows in severe weather situations. This allows damaging wind and debris to enter the structure.

69% of all tornadoes are labeled "weak tornadoes" meaning they have a lifetime of 1-10+ minutes a

SCALE

WIND SPEED

POSSIBLE DAMAGE

Enhanced,
Operational
Fujita Scale

29% of all tornadoes are labeled "strong tornadoes" meaning they last 20 minutes or longer and winds reach 110-205 mph.
2% of all tornadoes are labeled "violent tornadoes" and can last over an hour.

Fujita Scale of Tornado Intensity

Tornado Safety Tips
BEFORE A TORNADO: Have a disaster plan. Make sure everyone knows where to go in case a tornado threatens. Make sure you know which county or parish you live in. Prepare a kit with emergency food for your home. Have enough food and water for at least 3 days.

AFTER A TORNADO: Stay indoors until it is safe to come out. Check for injured or trapped people, without putting yourself in danger. Watch out for downed power lines. Use a flashlight to inspect your home. Tornado Activities

Lesson Plan: Here are some great lesson plans on learning about tornado safety. Note: This is a PDF file, so you need to have Adobe Acrobat Reader. DURING A TORNADO: Go to a basement. If you do not have a basement, go to an interior room without windows on the lowest floor such as a bathroom or closet. If you can, get under a sturdy piece of furniture, like a table. If you live in a mobile home get out. They offer little protection against tornadoes. Get out of automobiles. Do not try to outrun a tornado in your car, leave it immediately. If you're outside, go to a ditch or low lying area and lie flat in it. Stay away from fallen power lines and stay out of damaged areas.
Tornado Experiment: Here is a great experiment that allows the kids to make a tornado in a bottle.
IF YOU'RE AT SCHOOL DURING A TORNADO: Every school should have a disaster plan and have frequent drills. Basements offer the best protection. Schools without basements should use interior rooms and hallways on the lowest floor away from windows. Crouch down on your knees and protect your head with your arms.
Tornado Experiment: Here is a great experiment that allows the kids to make a tornado in a jar.
Pressure Experiment: Here is an experiment that shows how pressure is created in our atmosphere by sucking an egg in a bottle. This is a very cool experiment!
Science Fair Project Ideas: Here is a complete list of science fair project ideas. Discover the science behind the weather that impacts us every day.

Make A Barometer Experiment: Here is an experiment that allows the kids to make a barometer.

Evaporation Experiment: Here is an experiment that shows kids how evaporation takes place.

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Weather Wiz Kids weather information for kids

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Weather Wiz Kids is a fun and safe website for kids about all the weather info they need to know. It contains tools for weather education, including weather games, activities, experiments, photos, a glossary and educational teaching materials for the classroom.

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What you need to know

Experts are encouraged by early Covid-19 vaccine findings from Moderna and Pfizer, but warn the world still faces challenging months ahead.

The US has recorded more than 100,000 daily infections for two weeks straight, prompting more states to announce new restrictions to slow the spread.

France became the first country in Europe to top 2 million confirmed cases of coronavirus, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

The state of Washington reported 2,677 new coronavirus cases Tuesday, a new single-day high, according to its health department.

Following the release of the latest numbers, Gov. Jay Inslee said on Twitter: "We need everyone doing their part to stop this virus."

Washington has recorded a total of 131,444 Covid-19 cases and 2,571 deaths. Currently, 9,573 patients are hospitalized.
Note: These numbers were released by the Washington state Department of Health and may not line up exactly in real time with CNN's database drawn from Johns Hopkins University and the Covid Tracking Project.

Rep. Ed Perlmutter, a Democrat from Colorado, announced Tuesday night that he has tested positive for Covid-19.

"I learned today that I have tested positive for COVID-19. As of now, I am asymptomatic and I'm feeling good. I am currently in Washington D.C. and plan to isolate in my apartment while continuing to work and voting remotely," he said in the statement.
"I've been taking precautions like so many Coloradans over the past eight months. This serves as an important reminder that this virus is highly contagious and should be taken seriously. As we enter the holiday season, I encourage everyone to continue to heed the warnings of no personal gatherings, social distancing, and wearing a mask."

Perlmutter was on Capitol Hill during a series of votes Monday.

This brings the number of House members and senators who have tested positive for the coronavirus to 33.

Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa also announced Wednesday that he had tested positive.

The Australian state of South Australia will shut down for six days from midnight Thursday, following a Covid-19 outbreak in Adelaide, the state's capital city.

South Australia Premier Steven Marshall announced Wednesday that the community would "pause" for six days to serve as a "circuit breaker" of the new outbreak.

"We are at a critical point, but we will get through this," Marshall said at a news briefing

The new measures: South Australians will be restricted from leaving their homes, even for outdoor exercise, unless they are an essential worker, South Australia Police Commissioner Grant Stevens said.

A mandatory mask mandate will also be enforced, Stevens added.

All facilities such as schools, pubs, coffee shops and outdoor sports will be closed. Only essential services, like supermarkets, medical facilities and public transport will remain open.

There are currently 22 Covid-19 cases linked to the Adelaide cluster, South Australia's Chief Health Officer Nicola Spurrier said. The cases are all considered to be linked to a worker in a medi-hotel, where international arrivals are required to quarantine for 14 days.

On Tuesday, local authorities ordered 4,000 people into quarantine in an attempt to contain the cluster.

South Korea reported 313 new coronavirus cases for Tuesday, the biggest daily jump since August 29, according to a Korea Disease Control Prevention Agency (KDCA) news release on Wednesday.

Among the new cases, 245 were locally transmitted and 68 were imported.

More than half of the new cases were from the greater Seoul area. The Seoul metropolitan area will tighten its social distancing measures from Thursday, limiting the size of school classes and religious gatherings.

South Korea has now recorded a total of 29,311 cases and 496 deaths, according to KDCA.

A mid-stage trial shows that a Chinese made Covid-19 vaccine seems to be safe, according to a study published in the Lancet Infectious Diseases Tuesday.

Sinovac, the Chinese company that makes the Coronavac vaccine candidate, tested it in a randomized controlled trial involving 700 healthy adult volunteers between April and May. None of the volunteers had a history of a Covid-19 infection. None had traveled in areas with a high rate of the disease.

Volunteers in the Phase 2 trial were divided into three groups. One group got a low dose of the vaccine, another got a higher dose and a third received a placebo.

This particular vaccine uses a chemically inactivated whole virus based on a sample taken from a patient in China. Most of the other coronavirus vaccines in development use biotechnology approaches to produce just a fragment of the virus. Using a whole, killed virus is an older, tried and true method that makes vaccine production slower and that doctors say can produce more side-effects.

The results: The vaccine was well tolerated at all the dose levels, and there didn't seem to be any safety concerns, according to the researchers, which include experts from the Jiangsu Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention, China's National Institutes for Food and Drug Control, and Sinovac.

The most common complaint was pain at the injection site. One volunteer in the high dose group had a severe allergic reaction within 48 hours of the first dose, which researchers said may be related to the vaccine, but the volunteer was treated for the reaction and recovered within three days. The same volunteer did not have a similar allergic reaction to the second shot.

Even at the lowest dose, volunteers who received the vaccine seemed to show a robust antibody response within 14 days of the second of two injections. The injections were given 14 days apart.

What about efficacy? The levels of antibodies produced by vaccination were lower than in the volunteers who were infected by, and had recovered from, Covid-19 during the trial, but the researchers said they still expected it could provide protection. The study wasn't designed to determine how effective it was.

There may be advantages to this vaccine, according to one researcher who worked at the company that made it. This vaccine only needs standard refrigeration. It also may remain stable for up to three years in storage.

The company is continuing its trials to determine how effective the vaccine is.

France has become the first country in Europe to top 2 million confirmed cases of coronavirus, according to data from Johns Hopkins University and the French national health agency.

In a statement on Tuesday evening, France's health agency director Jerome Salomon confirmed at least 2,036,755 total cases had been reported in the country.

"Whether in cities or in rural areas, all regions, all metropolitan departments, are affected," Salomon said.
"This second wave, which we are all facing, is massive, deadly and is straining all of our caregivers and our health system as a whole."

While France has now registered the highest cumulative number of Covid-19 cases in Europe overall, Salomon noted that the current coronavirus reproduction rate in the country is now below one, while the daily number of new cases has declined in the past week.

"In recent days, the number of new cases has declined, redoubling efforts to regain control of the epidemic," Salomon said, adding that public adherence to national coronavirus restrictions is now "beginning to bear fruit" in France.
"All collective efforts, respect for curfews and national confinement measures serve to explain this positive trend. It is by maintaining a very high level of vigilance and mobilization that we will be able to spend the end-of-year celebrations and the winter months in the safest conditions," he added.

According to the latest data from the national health agency, a total of 33,139 coronavirus patients are currently in hospital -- down by 327 since Monday -- with 4,838 of those in intensive care.

A further 1,219 coronavirus patients have died since Monday, the national health agency added, bringing the total death toll in France to 46,273.

The US Food and Drug Administration has called for a meeting of its vaccine advisory committee in three weeks to consider whether the agency should authorize two Covid-19 vaccines, according to a source familiar with the process.

The FDA reached out last week to members of its Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, a group of outside experts, asking them to hold Dec. 8, 9 and 10 for meetings, according to the source.

The agency could make a decision at the end of the meeting on Dec. 10 about whether to issue emergency use authorizations for the vaccines, the source said.

Two companies, Pfizer and Moderna, say they will soon apply to the FDA for authorization for their Covid-19 vaccines, both of which have shown in initial data to be more than 90% effective against Covid-19.

"It will make sense that in all likelihood the FDA will consider both applications together," the source said, considering that both vaccines use the same technology and appear to have very similar safety and efficacy results from their large-scale Phase 3 clinical trials.

If the FDA authorizes the vaccines, they can then be immediately distributed to states, according to a presentation made last month at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

However, no one can be vaccinated until a CDC advisory committee reviews the data, recommends the vaccine, and says which groups will receive it first.

If the FDA authorizes the vaccines, the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), an independent panel of experts, will meet within 24 to 48 hours, according to a CDC spokesperson.

At that meeting, the committee will determine if everyone should get the vaccine, or if some people should be excluded. It will also decide which groups should get the vaccine first.

"We have all been alerted on ACIP we should be very flexible with our calendars because it's likely there won't be a lot of advanced notice given for this meeting. It will be done very, very quickly," said Dr. William Schaffner, a committee member.

Once ACIP issues its recommendations, vaccinations can be given.

Next steps: The nation's top infectious disease physician, Dr. Anthony Fauci, told CNN earlier this week the first vaccinations in the US could take place "towards the latter part of December."

States are currently working out the details of running vaccination clinics. The Pfizer vaccine is particularly complicated, since it must be stored at minus 75 degrees Celsius, and doctors' offices and pharmacies typically do not have freezers that go that low.

The first groups expected to receive the vaccine are health care workers, the elderly, essential workers such as police officers, and those with underlying medical conditions.

The Pfizer vaccine trial has reached its safety milestone and the company is preparing to file for emergency use authorization, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said Tuesday.

Pfizer announced on Nov. 9 that its coronavirus vaccine appears to be more than 90% effective, based on early data.

But the company did not yet have enough data to seek emergency use authorization from the US Food and Drug Administration, which said it also wanted at least two months of safety data on at least half of a vaccine trial's volunteers starting from when they got their second immunization.

"I think the questions about the safety at large also have been answered," Bourla said in an interview hosted by The New York Times. "Our safety milestone has been achieved already, and we are preparing now for submissions."

Bourla said they are not yet sure how durable the protection from their vaccine will be. The Pfizer vaccine uses a messenger RNA, or mRNA, platform to produce an immune response.

"With the mRNA technology, you can boost as soon as you want," said Bourla. People can be given an additional dose of a vaccine once immunity wears off, referred to as a boost.

Bourla said that a boost, if needed, would likely require only one dose.

What you need to know

Experts are encouraged by early Covid-19 vaccine findings from Moderna and Pfizer, but warn the world still faces challenging months ahead.

The US has recorded more than 100,000 daily infections for two weeks straight, prompting more states to announce new restrictions to slow the spread.

France became the first country in Europe to top 2 million confirmed cases of coronavirus, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

The state of Washington reported 2,677 new coronavirus cases Tuesday, a new single-day high, according to its health department.

Following the release of the latest numbers, Gov. Jay Inslee said on Twitter: "We need everyone doing their part to stop this virus."

Washington has recorded a total of 131,444 Covid-19 cases and 2,571 deaths. Currently, 9,573 patients are hospitalized.
Note: These numbers were released by the Washington state Department of Health and may not line up exactly in real time with CNN's database drawn from Johns Hopkins University and the Covid Tracking Project.

Rep. Ed Perlmutter, a Democrat from Colorado, announced Tuesday night that he has tested positive for Covid-19.

"I learned today that I have tested positive for COVID-19. As of now, I am asymptomatic and I'm feeling good. I am currently in Washington D.C. and plan to isolate in my apartment while continuing to work and voting remotely," he said in the statement.
"I've been taking precautions like so many Coloradans over the past eight months. This serves as an important reminder that this virus is highly contagious and should be taken seriously. As we enter the holiday season, I encourage everyone to continue to heed the warnings of no personal gatherings, social distancing, and wearing a mask."

Perlmutter was on Capitol Hill during a series of votes Monday.

This brings the number of House members and senators who have tested positive for the coronavirus to 33.

Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa also announced Wednesday that he had tested positive.

The Australian state of South Australia will shut down for six days from midnight Thursday, following a Covid-19 outbreak in Adelaide, the state's capital city.

South Australia Premier Steven Marshall announced Wednesday that the community would "pause" for six days to serve as a "circuit breaker" of the new outbreak.

"We are at a critical point, but we will get through this," Marshall said at a news briefing

The new measures: South Australians will be restricted from leaving their homes, even for outdoor exercise, unless they are an essential worker, South Australia Police Commissioner Grant Stevens said.

A mandatory mask mandate will also be enforced, Stevens added.

All facilities such as schools, pubs, coffee shops and outdoor sports will be closed. Only essential services, like supermarkets, medical facilities and public transport will remain open.

There are currently 22 Covid-19 cases linked to the Adelaide cluster, South Australia's Chief Health Officer Nicola Spurrier said. The cases are all considered to be linked to a worker in a medi-hotel, where international arrivals are required to quarantine for 14 days.

On Tuesday, local authorities ordered 4,000 people into quarantine in an attempt to contain the cluster.

South Korea reported 313 new coronavirus cases for Tuesday, the biggest daily jump since August 29, according to a Korea Disease Control Prevention Agency (KDCA) news release on Wednesday.

Among the new cases, 245 were locally transmitted and 68 were imported.

More than half of the new cases were from the greater Seoul area. The Seoul metropolitan area will tighten its social distancing measures from Thursday, limiting the size of school classes and religious gatherings.

South Korea has now recorded a total of 29,311 cases and 496 deaths, according to KDCA.

A mid-stage trial shows that a Chinese made Covid-19 vaccine seems to be safe, according to a study published in the Lancet Infectious Diseases Tuesday.

Sinovac, the Chinese company that makes the Coronavac vaccine candidate, tested it in a randomized controlled trial involving 700 healthy adult volunteers between April and May. None of the volunteers had a history of a Covid-19 infection. None had traveled in areas with a high rate of the disease.

Volunteers in the Phase 2 trial were divided into three groups. One group got a low dose of the vaccine, another got a higher dose and a third received a placebo.

This particular vaccine uses a chemically inactivated whole virus based on a sample taken from a patient in China. Most of the other coronavirus vaccines in development use biotechnology approaches to produce just a fragment of the virus. Using a whole, killed virus is an older, tried and true method that makes vaccine production slower and that doctors say can produce more side-effects.

The results: The vaccine was well tolerated at all the dose levels, and there didn't seem to be any safety concerns, according to the researchers, which include experts from the Jiangsu Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention, China's National Institutes for Food and Drug Control, and Sinovac.

The most common complaint was pain at the injection site. One volunteer in the high dose group had a severe allergic reaction within 48 hours of the first dose, which researchers said may be related to the vaccine, but the volunteer was treated for the reaction and recovered within three days. The same volunteer did not have a similar allergic reaction to the second shot.

Even at the lowest dose, volunteers who received the vaccine seemed to show a robust antibody response within 14 days of the second of two injections. The injections were given 14 days apart.

What about efficacy? The levels of antibodies produced by vaccination were lower than in the volunteers who were infected by, and had recovered from, Covid-19 during the trial, but the researchers said they still expected it could provide protection. The study wasn't designed to determine how effective it was.

There may be advantages to this vaccine, according to one researcher who worked at the company that made it. This vaccine only needs standard refrigeration. It also may remain stable for up to three years in storage.

The company is continuing its trials to determine how effective the vaccine is.

France has become the first country in Europe to top 2 million confirmed cases of coronavirus, according to data from Johns Hopkins University and the French national health agency.

In a statement on Tuesday evening, France's health agency director Jerome Salomon confirmed at least 2,036,755 total cases had been reported in the country.

"Whether in cities or in rural areas, all regions, all metropolitan departments, are affected," Salomon said.
"This second wave, which we are all facing, is massive, deadly and is straining all of our caregivers and our health system as a whole."

While France has now registered the highest cumulative number of Covid-19 cases in Europe overall, Salomon noted that the current coronavirus reproduction rate in the country is now below one, while the daily number of new cases has declined in the past week.

"In recent days, the number of new cases has declined, redoubling efforts to regain control of the epidemic," Salomon said, adding that public adherence to national coronavirus restrictions is now "beginning to bear fruit" in France.
"All collective efforts, respect for curfews and national confinement measures serve to explain this positive trend. It is by maintaining a very high level of vigilance and mobilization that we will be able to spend the end-of-year celebrations and the winter months in the safest conditions," he added.

According to the latest data from the national health agency, a total of 33,139 coronavirus patients are currently in hospital -- down by 327 since Monday -- with 4,838 of those in intensive care.

A further 1,219 coronavirus patients have died since Monday, the national health agency added, bringing the total death toll in France to 46,273.

The US Food and Drug Administration has called for a meeting of its vaccine advisory committee in three weeks to consider whether the agency should authorize two Covid-19 vaccines, according to a source familiar with the process.

The FDA reached out last week to members of its Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, a group of outside experts, asking them to hold Dec. 8, 9 and 10 for meetings, according to the source.

The agency could make a decision at the end of the meeting on Dec. 10 about whether to issue emergency use authorizations for the vaccines, the source said.

Two companies, Pfizer and Moderna, say they will soon apply to the FDA for authorization for their Covid-19 vaccines, both of which have shown in initial data to be more than 90% effective against Covid-19.

"It will make sense that in all likelihood the FDA will consider both applications together," the source said, considering that both vaccines use the same technology and appear to have very similar safety and efficacy results from their large-scale Phase 3 clinical trials.

If the FDA authorizes the vaccines, they can then be immediately distributed to states, according to a presentation made last month at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

However, no one can be vaccinated until a CDC advisory committee reviews the data, recommends the vaccine, and says which groups will receive it first.

If the FDA authorizes the vaccines, the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), an independent panel of experts, will meet within 24 to 48 hours, according to a CDC spokesperson.

At that meeting, the committee will determine if everyone should get the vaccine, or if some people should be excluded. It will also decide which groups should get the vaccine first.

"We have all been alerted on ACIP we should be very flexible with our calendars because it's likely there won't be a lot of advanced notice given for this meeting. It will be done very, very quickly," said Dr. William Schaffner, a committee member.

Once ACIP issues its recommendations, vaccinations can be given.

Next steps: The nation's top infectious disease physician, Dr. Anthony Fauci, told CNN earlier this week the first vaccinations in the US could take place "towards the latter part of December."

States are currently working out the details of running vaccination clinics. The Pfizer vaccine is particularly complicated, since it must be stored at minus 75 degrees Celsius, and doctors' offices and pharmacies typically do not have freezers that go that low.

The first groups expected to receive the vaccine are health care workers, the elderly, essential workers such as police officers, and those with underlying medical conditions.

The Pfizer vaccine trial has reached its safety milestone and the company is preparing to file for emergency use authorization, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said Tuesday.

Pfizer announced on Nov. 9 that its coronavirus vaccine appears to be more than 90% effective, based on early data.

But the company did not yet have enough data to seek emergency use authorization from the US Food and Drug Administration, which said it also wanted at least two months of safety data on at least half of a vaccine trial's volunteers starting from when they got their second immunization.

"I think the questions about the safety at large also have been answered," Bourla said in an interview hosted by The New York Times. "Our safety milestone has been achieved already, and we are preparing now for submissions."

Bourla said they are not yet sure how durable the protection from their vaccine will be. The Pfizer vaccine uses a messenger RNA, or mRNA, platform to produce an immune response.

"With the mRNA technology, you can boost as soon as you want," said Bourla. People can be given an additional dose of a vaccine once immunity wears off, referred to as a boost.

Bourla said that a boost, if needed, would likely require only one dose.

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coronavirus update: latest news from around the world

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Coronavirus update: Latest news from around the world

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What you need to know Experts are encouraged by early Covid-19 vaccine findings from Moderna and Pfizer, but warn the world still faces challenging months ahead. The US has recorded more than 100,000 daily infections for two weeks straight, prompting more states to announce new restrictions to slow the spread.

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mark's name is acually pronounced maaaak

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mark's name is acually pronounced maaaak

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https://www.go2africa.com/african-travel-blog/updated-african-travel-restrictions-due-to-coronavirus-covid-19

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How will spring and winter sports be working with the pandemic

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How will spring and winter sports be working with the pandemic

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Joe Biden for President: Official Campaign Website

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The people of this nation have spoken. They have delivered us a clear victory. A convincing victory. A victory for “We the People.” We have won with the most votes ever cast for a presidential ticket in the history of this nation — 81 million. I am humbled by the trust and confidence you have […]

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The MAGA Movement

The American Way of Life is under attack while career politicians destroy our economy and sabotage our nation's incredible potential. We will take our country back from the corrupt Washington establishment and return power to the American people, where it belongs. We will achieve a future of prosperity, security, and peace - creating once again the greatest economy in the history of the world, defending our borders, restoring energy independence, and leading with strength and pride on the world stage. It is time to put America First once more and usher in a glorious new era of faith, family, and freedom. Together, we will save lives, save jobs, and save America. Join me in our unstoppable mission to Make America Great Again.

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Certified Website of Donald J. Trump For President 2024. America's comeback starts right now. Join our movement to Make America Great Again!

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New COVID-FRIENDLY Ways to do the upcoming holidays.

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New COVID-FRIENDLY Ways to do the upcoming holidays.

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Micro-dwellings  become popular as living costs rise

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Micro-dwellings  become popular as living costs rise

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Micro-dwellings become popular as living costs rise

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what happend to the original twisty was he killed???

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what happend to the original twisty was he killed???

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New pictures have been released of Jupiter, taken by the spacecraft Juno

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New pictures have been released of Jupiter, taken by the spacecraft Juno

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These stunning Jupiter pictures, captured by NASA's Juno spacecraft, show the hidden beauty that lurks within the planet's chaotic storms.

Ever since NASA's Juno spacecraft began orbiting our solar system's largest planet in 2016, it has turned out countless breathtaking Jupiter pictures, giving researchers and space enthusiasts an unprecedented look at the mysterious planet.

Because Jupiter is a stormy planet with chaotic clouds constantly swirling above its surface, it makes for quite the visual spectacle. The spacecraft has captured a nearly constant stream of photos of this spectacle, and the most recent one has caused a stir on social media with hundreds of people chiming in about what animals, people, and objects they see lurking in the planet's swirling clouds.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab tweeted the stunning photo on Nov. 9 (it was captured 4,400 miles above the planet's surface on Oct. 29), asking their followers what they saw in the clouds and the answers were nothing if not varied.

One user was convinced that they saw a squid.

Another believed that the swirling clouds formed the image of a dragon, and they added their own lines to enhance their argument for those who might not see it right away.

One of the more unique things spotted in the photo by a Twitter user was the Virgin Mary with a diplodocus dinosaur.

Despite what others may see in the clouds, it should be noted that this photo, like the rest of the Jupiter pictures captured by NASA, was enhanced. The raw photos captured by Juno are enhanced in-house at NASA before they are shown to the public. During the enhancement process, the team corrects distortions, adds color, and balances the brightness.

Editing the photos allows the storms and wind currents on the planet to be highlighted in a way that is easier to see, while subtle color changes make the photo more visually stunning. The enhanced Jupiter pictures also allow the minds of space enthusiasts to run wild and speculate over what they see inside.

For the latest batch of photos taken from Juno, NASA enlisted artists Gerald Eichstädt and Seán Doran to touch up the pictures and there was more than one that caused a stir on social media. Doran posted a few of the shots to his Twitter account and one eagle-eyed user was quick to point out the unmistakable form of a dolphin in the clouds.

No matter what enhancements he's made, Doran is careful to not cross the line between enhancing the photos and completely altering them.

"It's like peeling back a curtain," Doran told The Atlantic in 2017 regarding the enhancing of Jupiter pictures. "You just want to reveal what's there. That's what motivates me-and I try not to upset the scientists too much."

Whatever touch-ups occur, these Jupiter pictures have a way of sparking the imaginations of all who see them. Just as we do with our own planet's clouds, people can't help but spot creatures, historical figures, or animals in the stormy clouds covering this most awe-inspiring of planets.
After viewing these Jupiter pictures, take a look at these stunning photos that give the closest-ever look at Jupiter's mysterious red spot. Then, discover the odd phenomenon of moonmoons.

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NASA's New Jupiter Photos Have People Seeing All Kinds Of Things In The Planet's Infamous Clouds

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Ever since NASA's Juno spacecraft began orbiting our solar system's largest planet in 2016, it has turned out countless breathtaking Jupiter pictures, giving researchers and space enthusiasts an unprecedented look at the mysterious planet. Because Jupiter is a stormy planet with chaotic clouds constantly swirling above its surface, it makes for quite the visual spectacle.

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COPY RIGHT

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About the F-35

The F-35 Lightning II is a 5th Generation fighter, combining advanced stealth with fighter speed and agility, fully fused sensor information, network-enabled operations and advanced sustainment. Three variants of the F-35 will replace the A-10 and F-16 for the U.S. Air Force, the F/A-18 for the U.S. Navy, the F/A-18 and AV-8B Harrier for the U.S. Marine Corps, and a variety of fighters for at least ten other countries.

The Lightning II is a single-seat, single-engine fighter aircraft designed for many missions with advanced, integrated sensors built into every aircraft. Missions that were traditionally performed by small numbers of specialized aircraft, such as intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance and electronic attack missions can now be executed by a squadron of F-35s, bringing new capabilities to many allied forces.

The F-35 is developed, produced, and supported by an international team of leading aerospace companies. As the prime contractor, Lockheed Martin continues its 100-year history of aircraft research and design with the Lightning II. Principal partners Northrop Grumman and BAE Systems build the center and aft fuselages, respectively. Northrop Grumman also brings its expertise in carrier aircraft and low-observable stealth technology to the F-35 program and supports logistics, sustainment, modeling and simulation and mission planning. BAE Systems contributes a rich heritage of capabilities, including short takeoff and vertical landing experience, advanced lean manufacturing, flight testing and air systems sustainment. Pratt & Whitney builds the F-35's F135 propulsion system, the world's most powerful fighter engine.

Why the F-35?

It can go where other aircraft can't:

Maintaining air superiority is essential to preserving global security and stability. The F-35 is designed to defeat today's most advanced threat systems both in the air and on the ground, as well as those expected to emerge in the decades to come. The ongoing advancement of fighter aircraft designs around the world reinforces the importance of the F-35's advanced capabilities and technologies. Enabled by global partnerships, the F-35 offers unprecedented capability and supportability across the spectrum of military operations.

U.S. and allied fighter fleets are getting smaller and older. Since 1990, the U.S. Air Force fighter inventory has been cut in half and current Air Force fighter aircraft are, on average, more than 25 years old. Numerous militaries around the world also need to recapitalize their aging fighter fleets with modern, more capable aircraft. The F-35 was designed to recapitalize allied fighter fleets and counter emerging threats.

There's no better aircraft for the job:

An advanced, affordable fighter enabled by global partnerships, the F-35 offers unprecedented capability and supportability across the spectrum of military operations.

What is a "5th Generation" Fighter?

A 5th Generation fighter has advanced stealth, exceptional agility and maneuverability, sensor and information fusion, network-enabled operations and advanced sustainment. 5th Generation technology provides greater survivability, situational awareness, and effectiveness for pilots, as well as improved readiness and lower support costs. As a true 5th Generation fighter, the F-35 has stealth designed in as part of the aircraft from the beginning.

Maj. Thomas Hayes, USAF 31st Test and Evaluation Squadron, explains what 5th Generation survivability means from a pilot's perspective:

The F-35 and the F-22 are both 5th Generation fighters featuring advanced stealth, integrated avionics, sensor fusion and superior logistics support. The F-35 also delivers additional 5th Generation features, such as multi-spectral sensors, interoperability and modernized avionics.

The F-35 and the F-22 are the world's two premier fighters, but there are some differences between the aircraft. The F-35 is optimized to be a multirole fighter, with the ability to perform air-to-air, air-to-ground and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) missions. While the F-22 is superior to the F-35 in air-to-air missions, the F-35's air-to-air capability is superior to all other fighters. The F-35 is better than any other fighter aircraft, including the F-22, for air-to-ground strike missions.

Learn more about F-35 capabilities.

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The F-35 Lightning II is a 5th Generation fighter, combining advanced stealth with fighter speed and agility, fully fused sensor information, network-enabled operations and advanced sustainment. Three variants of the F-35 will replace the A-10 and F-16 for the U.S. Air Force, the F/A-18 for the U.S.

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Senators Push for More F-35 Oversight in Spending Bill - Air Force Magazine

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The Senate Appropriations Committee wants to keep a closer eye on the Pentagon's most expensive weapons program.

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Lab-Grown Meat May Save a Lot More than Farm Animals' Lives

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Lab-Grown Meat May Save a Lot More than Farm Animals' Lives

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Imagine a backyard barbecue where the parents grill burgers and chicken kebabs they've grown from single cells using a home meat-making machine. Meanwhile, the kids are transfixed by grandparents' tales of life in the 20th century, before google was a verb and when meat was brutally carved from animals that looked like their pets.

We're not there, yet. But raising animals for consumption may soon become obsolete. Scientists have shown it's possible to produce animal-free beef, chicken, turkey, and fish. The latest example is lab-grown fried chicken, revealed last month by San Francisco-based startup Memphis Meats. Tasters of the product described it simply as chicken, perhaps a little spongier.
Related: Is This Burger-Flipping Robot the Future of Fast Food?
"I was blown away," says Emily Byrd, a spokesperson for the Good Food Institute, a nonprofit dedicated to promoting animal-free meat. "It's almost strange to talk about it because the only way I can describe it is that it was chicken."

Meat is essentially muscle tissue. If it grows naturally from a just few cells into a thick chunk, why can't the same process happen in the lab? Over the past few years, scientists have made progress in figuring out how to use self-renewing cells to grow this tissue outside the body, and some hope to scale it up for mass production soon. You can call it lab-grown, clean, or cultured meat - we have yet to settle on a term - but there's a good chance these products will replace conventional meat because of their potential to reduce environmental cost, increase health benefits for humans, and protect the welfare of the animals.

Mark Post poses with the world's first beef burger created from stem cells harvested from a living cow. Simon Dawson / Bloomberg via Getty Images

More Meat, Safer Production

Population growth and changing trends in diet have led to a doubling of meat consumption by humans over the past half-century. By 2050, estimates suggest meat production will have to increase to 455 million tons each year, up from 259 tons today, in order to satisfy the additional demand generated by population and income growth, according to a 2012 report by the United Nations.

But producing that much meat using conventional methods might ruin the planet. Meat and dairy products account for 70 percent of global water consumption, 38 percent of land use, and 19 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, according to the report. The alarming environmental impact of meat production has even led the U.N. to suggest people curb their meat consumption, with a proposed regimen including one meat-free day each week.

Some analyses suggest that growing meat in factories could lessen the environmental footprint of livestock and reduce land and water use, as well as emissions. The lab-grown meat does, however, require creative designs to minimize the electricity and heat required to run the labs.

First, and most important, however, scientists and companies will need to figure out how to make enough lab-grown meat to bring its cost down to that of meat already on grocery shelves. Even the conventional meat industry is warming to the idea. In December, Tyson Foods, the largest U.S. meat company, launched a venture-capital fund to invest in start-ups that work on innovative approaches to protein products.

Historic Changes Are Underway

Winston Churchill predicted in a 1932 essay that within 50 years we'd be growing edible animal parts to "escape the absurdity of growing a whole chicken." He was just barely off. In 2002, a NASA-funded project successfully grew fillets from goldfish cells, but it wasn't until a little later that lab-grown meat started to look viable.

It started with a hamburger grown entirely outside an animal's body by Mark Post, professor of vascular physiology at Maastricht University in the Netherlands.

Cultured beef grown in a laboratory from stem cells of cattle. David Parry / PA via AP

To grow the burger, he and his team used stem cells extracted from cow muscle tissue in a procedure similar to a biopsy. The cells were then put in a solution of bovine serum taken from unborn calves and then received food, hormones, and other elements naturally needed to grow. Over a few weeks, the cells multiplied and formed thin strips of muscle. It took about 20,000 of these strips to make one patty.

That project cost about $330,000. But the burger, the first of its kind, also required expert care of skilled technicians and expensive laboratory supplies. Post, who later formed the company Mosa Meat, has since announced that the price of his historic burger has fallen to $30 per pound.

Taste testers approved of his product and said it was "very meaty" - perhaps too meaty. It turns out much of red meat's taste actually comes from its fat content, which was nonexistent in the lab-grown burger. This complicates the job of meat creators; growing two types of tissues, each with different needs, outside their natural medium is difficult.

Rapidly Growing Biotechnology

Growing meat in the lab is possible because of breakthroughs in stem cell research and tissue engineering - two fields that have attracted scientific interest because of their immense potential in medicine. Uses now range from growing human tissue for transplantation to creating organs-on-chips for testing new drugs.

"Stem cell science and tissue engineering are at a stage that you can try other applications," says Shulamit Levenberg, a tissue engineer at Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa.

In her research, Levenberg created muscle grafts that can generate blood vessels to better survive when transplanted into the body. To do this requires a special expertise, one that also comes in handy for producing tasty lab-grown meat made of both muscle and fat, she says.

Such creative applications of tissue engineering are catching on. In 2015, the first cultured meat conference took place in the Netherlands and was attended by about 100 people, many of whom came from medical research fields only peripherally related to lab-grown meat production.

Southern fried chicken by Memphis Meats. The company says they are "developing a way to produce real meat from animal cells, without the need to feed, breed and slaughter actual animals." Memphis Meats

Meat of the Future

All this movement in new foods technology has triggered regulatory authorities to find ways of modernizing the rules set 25 years ago, when these new meat products were still science fiction.

In March, The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in Washington, D.C. released a report on the issue. "The rapid and often unforeseen advances" in biotechnology over the past decade spurred the committee to predict all future products of biotechnology that may arise over the next five to 10 years. Animal-free meat and dairy production was one field identified as having "high growth potential."

Commercial interest in lab-grown meat may lead to other scientific breakthroughs as it introduces new challenges for biomedical researchers. To reduce the price, for example, scientists will have to discover new ways to grow cells more efficiently, says Liz Specht, a senior scientist at Good Food Institute.
Related: An Aquaponic Vertical Farm Grows in Brooklyn
Taking an open source approach may help the field move forward, says Erin Kim of New Harvest, a research institute dedicated to funding the development of cultured meat and other cellular agriculture products. She and her colleagues are opening the field to interested researchers by helping to create "starter cell" lines they can buy to experiment on, much like researchers currently do with mice. This has led to the creation of a turkey cell line, which was used last year to grow a small turkey nugget by North Carolina State University graduate student Marie Gibbons.

It's possible that advances propelled by lab-grown meat could one day translate back into medical science.

"We are still limited in our understanding about how to grow larger pieces of tissue or functional organs," Levenberg says. "If the two parallel approaches - the medical and the food industry - work on it together, there are more chances solutions will be found."
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Lab-grown meat may save a lot more than farm animals' lives

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Imagine a backyard barbecue where the parents grill burgers and chicken kebabs they've grown from single cells using a home meat-making machine. Meanwhile, the kids are transfixed by grandparents' tales of life in the 20th century, before google was a verb and when meat was brutally carved from animals that looked like their pets.

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Henry and Beckham fighting for putting green.

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Henry and Beckham fighting for putting green.

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Golf has fans again

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In Germany, it is being termed a "lockdown light" for November while in France a four-week lockdown is expected but less severe than in the spring.

Chancellor Angela Merkel is set to decide with state leaders whether to shut bars, leisure centres and hotels to halt the rise in infections.

President Emmanuel Macron will give details of French measures later.

Covid infections in Europe are almost as high as in the first wave, although testing now is more extensive.

Night curfews are in force in several countries. However, one French minister has complained that curfews affecting some 46 million people have failed to halt social interactions.

"[The curfew] has simply shifted them - instead of getting together at 21:00, people meet up at six," the unnamed minister was quoted as saying.

The German government is keen to enable families and friends to meet at Christmas, but daily infections have soared to a new high of 14,964 and 85 more deaths.

Ireland imposed tight measures last week with the aim of reopening before Christmas and Italy shut cinemas and gyms this week in an attempt to "save Christmas". Now the UK government is under pressure to act too.

What measures are expected?

A draft proposal seen by German media suggests a broad but limited lockdown from 4 November:

Schools would remain open

Social contacts would be limited to two households and tourism would be halted

Cinemas, theatres, leisure centres would be shut

Bars would close and restaurants would be limited to takeaways

Tattoo and massage parlours would shut but hairdressers would be allowed to stay open

In France, the defence council and cabinet were deciding the extent of the planned four-week lockdown on Wednesday, but reports suggest schools will stay open and online study will be encouraged for older children and universities.

The changes could kick in from Thursday night.

France recorded 523 deaths on Tuesday, including 235 in residential homes, and the hospital federation has appealed for as broad a lockdown as possible.

"The country is really on the verge of having its health system becoming deluged," it said, warning of significant excess mortality in the most vulnerable groups.

A new French lockdown - with differences

The French government has been taken by surprise by the virulence of this second Covid wave. Some 50,000 new cases a day are being reported and that's probably a big underestimate.

The proportion of critical beds occupied by Covid patients is now 70% in Paris. So, at 20:00 (19:00 GMT) on Wednesday, President Macron is going to announce new restrictions - probably a new national lockdown, as in March, but with some key differences.

Schools for example will probably stay open. For business, it's going to be another massive blow - especially for sectors like entertainment and events - though the president will doubtless also say that extra government aid to struggling companies can also now be expected.

After the economy picked up in the third quarter, it now looks inevitable that it'll contract again between now and the end of the year, and for the whole of 2020 the government's predicting a 10% fall in GDP.

How are infections spreading?

While Western Europe has seen numbers returning to levels last seen during the initial wave, there are also big rises in Central and Eastern Europe.

In Russia, Deputy Prime Minister Tatiana Golikova has warned of a critical situation in hospital bed capacity in 16 regions. Five regions are at 95% capacity, she says. Masks are now required in crowded public places across Russia.

Poland on Wednesday announced a further 18,820 cases and 236 deaths

Belgium has reached its highest number of hospitalisations in a single day (689) since the Covid-19 pandemic began. The number of deaths has now surpassed 11,000

Spain has recorded 267 more deaths - the highest number since 1 May

Night curfews start at 21:00 today in the Czech Republic - except for working, walking the dog or urgent medical needs. Shops shut at 20:00. The country has again recorded more than 15,000 new cases

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Coronavirus: Germany and France to decide on new lockdowns

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In Germany, it is being termed a "lockdown light" for November while in France a four-week lockdown is expected but less severe than in the spring. Chancellor Angela Merkel is set to decide with state leaders whether to shut bars, leisure centres and hotels to halt the rise in infections.

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A pet prescription can remedy all sorts of problems, says animal expert Arden Moore. Spending time around animals, such as going bird watching, enjoying the company of a therapy dog, or even playing with your pet spider can be beneficial to your well-being. "There's something about the animal kingdom that possesses the ability for us to enjoy life a little better," says Moore, author of more than 20 pet books and radio host of Oh Behave, an online Pet Life Radio show. Read on for five reasons to include some animal time in your day.

7 Eco-Friendly Pet Products
1. They relax you

Petting your cat or dog may be noticeably enjoyable for them, but the act can relax you, as well. Moore suggests petting with a purpose to increase the release of feel-good hormones in animals and humans. "Give your dog or cat a head-to-tail therapeutic massage by running hand over hand through the body," she says. Your touch relaxes the animal and releases feel-good endorphins in you, reducing your heart rate. A therapeutic pet massage can also be used to regularly check animals for fleas or suspicious bumps, or to relieve muscle knots, says Moore.

2. They may reduce blood pressure

Communicating with animals may lower your blood pressure and improve your overall health. Moore suggests engaging animals in "happy talk," or speaking in an upbeat tone. "Happy talk or laughter around animals releases hormones in humans that lower blood pressure, and make animals feel better too," she says. Thinking happy thoughts when talking to your pet or speaking to birds and squirrels in your backyard may seem silly, but the conversation can put you at ease (even if it's one-sided).
How to Exercise with Your Dog
3. They're therapeutic

Animals from dogs to rabbits are often used for therapy in hospitals and nursing homes. "I've taken my dog to a few hospitals and schools, and it's amazing how people are reluctant to talk to people but will open up to an animal," Moore says. There's something rejuvenating, renewing about coming home to a friendly animal that greets you like a rock star," she says. Moore suggests that the strong human-to-animal bond could be related to fond childhood memories. Even if it's a just a spider, people often feel more comfortable being themselves around animals, says Moore. (Though admittedly, spiders aren't for everyone.)
5 Ways Cats Make You Healthier
4. They can improve human nutrition

Eating alongside bad company may decrease your appetite, but eating in the company of an animal may improve your eating habits. "In nursing homes, if there's a fish tank where people are eating, seeing those fish actually motivates some residents to eat," says Moore. In some cases, the companionship of animals has helped the nutritional habits of their humans. For example, she says, research has shown that recipients of the Meals on Wheels program who were allowed to eat near their pets improved some of their eating patterns.

5. They improve your relationships

A good relationship with your animal friends may spill over into better relations with humans. An animal doesn't care who you are or what outfit you're wearing; they want to play and be around you, says Moore. This carefree, playful attitude, she says, has made many animal-lovers more prone to live in the moment. According to a 1997 study at the University of Michigan School of Nursing, observing animals in nature can teach valuable characteristics like patience, and help restore mental energy. Taking care of an animal can also teach responsibility and stimulate feelings of trust, openness, and companionship.
How to Keep Your Dog's Weight Under Control
More Links:
Prenatal Pet Exposure Linked to Lower Allergy Risk in Children How Dogs Keep Kids Fit 13 Ways to Keep Your Dog Healthy Naturally Best Gear for Your Pets

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A pet prescription can remedy all sorts of problems, says animal expert Arden Moore. Spending time around animals, such as going bird watching, enjoying the company of a therapy dog, or even playing with your pet spider can be beneficial to your well-being.

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New regulations and social-distancing rules are being introduced across multiple European countries in an attempt to stop the spread of the coronavirus as a second wave of the pandemic accelerates across the continent. Europe reported more than 1.3 million new cases this past week, its highest single week count yet, according to the World Health Organization.

Spain and France each surpassed 1 million cumulative confirmed cases last week, becoming the sixth and seventh countries to do so globally. Italy, Germany, Belgium, the Czech Republic and the United Kingdom are also experiencing record numbers - threatening to overwhelm countries' abilities to test, trace and contain the virus. Polish President Andrzej Duda tested positive for the virus over the weekend, as cases have doubled there in recent weeks.

Europe's infection rate has been rising for over 90 days, according to European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. As authorities and experts worry that the situation in Europe may soon spin out of control, governments are imposing curfews and social restrictions in an attempt to avoid full-scale lockdowns that could hurt the economy and dim the upcoming holiday season.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez declared a national state of emergency on Sunday, which included a nighttime curfew and possible travel restrictions between regions. Italy also announced new measures to curb the virus, the harshest since its lockdown in the spring, when the country was the global epicenter of the pandemic.

U.K. Health Secretary Matt Hancock announced a move to a "high" alert level for London and other cities as of Oct. 17, banning residents from mixing with people from other households indoors and restricting outdoor gatherings to six people or fewer.

Last week, Ireland became the first country in Europe to reimpose a lockdown in the face of soaring cases.

Wales began a 17-day lockdown this weekend, shuttering all nonessential businesses and requiring people to remain home, with few exceptions. "If we do this now and if we then have a consistent set of national rules, to keep the transmission and the intensity of the virus at a lower level, then we can have a much more normal Christmas season for businesses," Vaughan Gething, the Welsh health minister, told BBC Radio Wales.

France has become the worst-hit country in Europe's second wave, with over 40,000 new cases every day the past few days. Nightly curfews have been in place in several cities since mid-October, and this weekend, multiple new curfews were enacted, bringing the total number of people affected to around 46 million, or about two-thirds of France's population.

"The second wave is here," said Prime Minister Jean Castex at a press conference when the new restrictions were announced. "The situation is grave."

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Europe Imposes New Restrictions As COVID-19 Cases Soar

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New regulations and social-distancing rules are being introduced across multiple European countries in an attempt to stop the spread of the coronavirus as a second wave of the pandemic accelerates across the continent. Europe reported more than 1.3 million new cases this past week, its highest single week count yet, according to the World Health Organization.

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The U.S. agency said changes in software, design and training had made the plane safe to operate after two fatal crashes and 20 months out of service.

Boeing's 737 Max was banned around the world for 20 months after two fatal crashes. Credit... Lindsey Wasson for The New York Times

The Federal Aviation Administration on Wednesday cleared the way for Boeing's 737 Max to resume flying, 20 months after it was grounded following two fatal crashes blamed on faulty software and a host of company and government failures.

The decision ends a devastating saga for Boeing, which had predicted billions of dollars in losses stemming from the Max crisis even before the coronavirus pandemic dealt a ruinous blow to global aviation. The agency's chief, Stephen Dickson, signed an order Wednesday formally lifting the grounding.

"The path that led us to this point was long and grueling, but we said from the start that we would take the time necessary to get this right," he said in a video message. "I am 100 percent comfortable with my family flying on it."

The Max was grounded worldwide in March 2019 when the F.A.A. joined regulators in dozens of other countries in banning the plane after the crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia killed all 346 people on board.

Investigators have attributed the crashes to a range of problems, including engineering flaws, mismanagement and a lack of federal oversight. At the root was software known as MCAS, which was designed to automatically push the plane's nose down in certain situations and has been blamed for both crashes.

In August, the F.A.A. determined that a series of proposals by Boeing - including changes to MCAS, flight crew training and the jet's design - "effectively mitigate" its safety concerns. Mr. Dickson, a former Delta Air Lines pilot, took the controls on a test flight in September, saying he liked what he saw.

In a news conference on Tuesday in anticipation of the F.A.A. announcement, relatives of victims on the second plane that crashed, Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, questioned whether Boeing had done enough to address safety concerns with the plane.

"Aviation should not be a trial-and-error process; it should be about safety," said Naoise Ryan, whose husband, Mick, was aboard that flight on March 10, 2019. "If safety is not prioritized, then these companies should not be in business."

In a letter to employee s, Boeing's chief executive, David Calhoun, welcomed the lifting of the ban, promising to proceed deliberately with the plane's return to service and to "never forget" the victims of the crashes.

"We will honor them by holding close the hard lessons learned from this chapter in our history to ensure accidents like these never happen again," he said.

Now that the F.A.A. has lifted its grounding order, regulators around the world are expected to follow suit, though some may take their time in wrapping up their own in-depth reviews. The agency has worked with its counterparts in Canada, the European Union and Brazil on revised pilot training requirements for the Max.

Even in the United States, it could be months before the Max starts carrying passengers again. The F.A.A. must still approve pilot training procedures for each U.S. airline operating the Max, planes need to be updated, and airlines suffering from a huge decline in traffic during the pandemic may feel little urgency to act quickly.

On an investor call last month, the American Airlines chief executive, Doug Parker, predicted that the carrier would not resume Max flights before late December if the order came in November.

United Airlines said Wednesday that it expected to start flying the Max in the first quarter of next year after 1,000 hours of work on every plane and "meticulous technical analysis." Southwest Airlines said it did not expect to resume flights until the second quarter.

The Air Line Pilots Association, which represents nearly 60,000 pilots in North America, including those at United and Delta, said in a statement that it was still reviewing changes to training procedures, but that the proposed engineering fixes "are sound and will be an effective component that leads to the safe return to service."

The F.A.A. decision removes some uncertainty as Boeing seeks to rehabilitate its reputation, start fulfilling longstanding orders for the Max and manage the sharp slowdown in business caused by the pandemic.

The company has lost more than 1,000 orders this year, mostly for the Max, after accounting for orders that either were canceled or are likely to fall through. Aircraft contracts typically allow buyers to cancel or renegotiate terms if deliveries are delayed, adding to the urgency for Boeing to resume delivering the planes. Still, the company has more than 4,200 orders in its backlog, most of them for the Max.

The single-aisle plane is the latest in Boeing's 737 line, an industry workhorse widely used by airlines around the world for short to intermediate distances. Southwest, for example, has more than 730 planes, all of them versions of the 737, including 34 Max jets. The airline has more on order, but its chief executive, Gary Kelly, said this week that Southwest was in no rush to expand its fleet.

For decades, Boeing had taken an incremental approach to the 737, choosing to update the plane rather than conceive a new model. That strategy had benefits, including reducing the need for costly pilot retraining. But it also resulted in a patchwork design that sometimes required workarounds. MCAS - for maneuvering characteristics augmentation system - was one such feature, developed to compensate for the size and placement of the engines on the Max.

In both crashes, faulty sensors activated the software, sending the planes toward the ground as the pilots struggled to pull them back up. In a September report, Democrats on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee said internal Boeing documents showed that concerns raised by employees about MCAS had been dismissed or insufficiently addressed. That report and one from the Transportation Department's inspector general accused Boeing of misleading the F.A.A. by playing down the complexity of MCAS, perhaps to avoid costly pilot training.

The House committee also faulted the agency's practice of outsourcing some certification functions to employees of the companies it oversees.

On Tuesday, the House passed a bipartisan bill aimed at changing F.A.A. certification procedures and requiring an expert panel to review Boeing's safety culture. The Air Line Pilots Association applauded the legislation, saying that it included much-needed changes to the certification process.

Boeing is nearing the end of a dreadful year. The pandemic has bruised its airline clients, leading to layoffs across the industry. Boeing expects to start 2021 with a global work force of about 130,000, nearly 19 percent fewer than it had at the start of this year. Also, quality concerns have slowed deliveries of its wide-body 787 Dreamliner.

Still, despite the twin crises of the Max grounding and the pandemic, there is hope. Orders for the Max may be difficult to cancel; some airlines, like Southwest, rely exclusively on Boeing planes, making it difficult to switch to the other major manufacturer, Airbus; and the Max offers savings on maintenance and fuel that may be difficult for some to pass up, especially as corporate clients pressure airlines to cut carbon footprints.

Boeing's stock has risen more than 40 percent this month, with investors encouraged by news from Pfizer and Moderna that coronavirus vaccines under development appear to be highly effective. Boeing shares were up a further 6 percent in premarket trading on Wednesday after the F.A.A. announcement.

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Boeing 737 Max Is Cleared by F.A.A. to Fly Again

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The U.S. agency said changes in software, design and training had made the plane safe to operate after two fatal crashes and 20 months out of service. The Federal Aviation Administration on Wednesday cleared the way for Boeing's 737 Max to resume flying, 20 months after it was grounded following two fatal crashes blamed on faulty software and a host of company and government failures.

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Fresh lockdowns to stem the spread of coronavirus have sparked sometimes violent protests in several European countries, fuelled both by ideological fury at new government-imposed restrictions and fears of economic hardship.

As the number of infections surge and hospitals and intensive care units fill up, countries including Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain have once more introduced tough curbs on movement and gatherings.

But the measures are stirring resistance, not just among libertarians who see them as an assault on personal freedom and conspiracy theorists who say the virus is a hoax, but from business owners and independent workers worried for their future.

The protests suggest mounting dissatisfaction with governments' responses to the pandemic and, amid a growing realisation that it will last for some time yet, alarm at the economic consequences even in countries such as Germany and France, where generous economic safety nets are functioning relatively well.

Italy coronavirus cases

Italy, one of the hardest-hit EU countries this spring, has been the scene of violent protests for more than a week as the government brought in new measures including closing cinemas and theatres and ordering bars and restaurants to shut at 6pm.

There have been skirmishes between police and protesters in Florence and other cities, including Rome, Naples, Turin and Bologna, with clashes between riot officers firing teargas and demonstrators hurling Molotov cocktails, bottles and rocks and overturning bins.

The government is working towards yet tougher measures that could include a national 9pm curfew, a ban on inter-regional travel and the closure of shopping malls at weekends to try to slow an alarming rise in daily infections.

The interior minister, Luciana Lamorgese, said this weekend the protests involved "violent fringe elements" including football hooligans, far-right activists and neo-fascists trying to "exploit the social and economic discomfort of this difficult moment".

But while polls show a majority of Italians support the latest restrictions, and the government has promised €5bn for the worst-hit professions including restaurants, taxi drivers and entertainment venues, peaceful protests by small business owners have also multiplied across the country.

Slogans brandished by demonstrators have included "Work is our right" and "If you close us down, you pay up." Government compensation "doesn't always arrive", a Milan businessman toldAgence France-Presse, and is "obviously not enough for the many who work wholly or partly in the informal economy. The winter will be hard."

In Spain, which has has imposed a nationwide night-time curfew and implemented regional border closures, anger spilled on to the streets on Saturday for the second night running, with looting and vandalism breaking out in some cities.

Thirty-two people were arrested and 12 injured in Madrid after a protest over the region's midnight to 6am curfew turned violent, and there were also demonstrations over the weekend in Barcelona, Málaga, Vitoria, Valencia, Santander and Burgos.

The prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, called for an end to "violent and irrational behaviour" by a minority. The protests have involved far-left and far-right groups, with the leader of the far-right Vox party, Santiago Abascal, saying there were "more reasons than ever to protest against this government, which is ruining us".

Spain coronavirus cases

Police in Belgium, which announced a second lockdown on Friday, broke up an unauthorised anti-lockdown protest in Brussels a few days earlier, while in Berlin, a crowd of about 2,000 including far-right activists and anti-vaxxers joined a rally last Monday demanding an end to all coronavirus restrictions.

"We are here and we are loud because we are being robbed of our freedom," the marchers chanted. The same day, an attempted arson attack was reported against the national disease control and prevention agency, the Robert Koch Institute, while on Wednesday thousands of artists and entertainment workers demanded more support.

Pianist plays Eternal Flame during violent anti-lockdown protest in Barcelona - video

The chancellor, Angela Merkel, announcing a new "soft lockdown" from Monday with bars, cinemas and theatres closed and cafes and restaurants allowed only takeaway service from Monday, described people arguing Covid-19 as dangerous and irresponsible, but said the government expected to face similar "protests and, let's say ... incomprehension" for some time to come.

In France, which has also entered a second, more relaxed lockdown, small protests numbering no more than 100 or so marked the occasion on Thursday night in several cities including Paris and Toulouse. In Castres, about 80km east of Toulouse, local shopkeepers brandished a banner reading: "Upright today; on our knees tomorrow".

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Cafe and restaurant workers demonstrate against closures in Toulouse last month. Photograph: Georges Gobet/AFP/Getty Images

Shopkeepers have complained about being forced to close while supermarkets, because they also sell food, are allowed to sell "non-essential goods" such as shoes, clothes and beauty products.

In a gesture of appeasement, the French finance minister, Bruno Le Maire, said on Monday that supermarkets would face the same limits on selling non-essential goods, but insisted shop owners may not challenge the lockdown rules.

Officials have said European economies, already devastated by lockdowns in March, April and May, will take a further hit from the second series of closures, even though the new measures are mostly not as strict and many companies are better equipped to deal with them.

Le Maire said last week he expected France's economic activity to fall by 15% during the new lockdown, about half the downturn it suffered this spring. But economists have warned consumer behaviour in particular is likely to be dampened by the fear of further lockdowns before life returns to normal sometime next year.
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Latest coronavirus lockdowns spark protests across Europe

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Fresh lockdowns to stem the spread of coronavirus have sparked sometimes violent protests in several European countries, fuelled both by ideological fury at new government-imposed restrictions and fears of economic hardship. As the number of infections surge and hospitals and intensive care units fill up, countries including Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain have once more introduced tough curbs on movement and gatherings.

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G.O.P. members of the elections board in Wayne County, which includes Detroit and is heavily Democratic, reversed their decision to hold up approval of Joe Biden's victory after an outcry.

Election workers counting absentee ballots in Detroit this month. The elections board in surrounding Wayne County initially deadlocked 2 to 2, with Republicans refusing to certify the county's results. Credit... Brittany Greeson for The New York Times

DETROIT - Republican members of a key elections board in the Detroit area refused on Tuesday to certify the county's election results in a nakedly partisan effort to hold up certification of Joseph R. Biden Jr.'s victory in Michigan over President Trump - only to reverse themselves after an outcry from state officials and Detroit voters.

The initial deadlock and pressure-packed turnaround capped a chaotic day of repeated Republican misfires in the party's attempt to undermine the election results. Republicans lost a case before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and faced a skeptical reception in a separate hearing in federal court in Pennsylvania, and an audit in Georgia confirmed there was no foul play with voting machines.

The Republican gambit in Detroit was among the starkest examples of how previously routine aspects of the nation's voting system have been tainted by Mr. Trump's effort to challenge his defeat. But its reversal showed the limits of what has been, in essence, an effort to disenfranchise large numbers of Americans. The G.O.P. board members certified the results only after hours of angry comments by citizens, many from Detroit, who accused the Republicans of trying to steal their votes.

At first, the two Republicans on the board said they were voting against certifying the results because many precincts in the county were out of balance, even though the disparities mostly involved a small number of votes. The board deadlocked, with Michigan Democrats denouncing the opposition as a blatantly political intrusion into the process, and criticizing the Republican move as racist.

At one point, a Republican board member, Monica Palmer, had made a motion to "certify the results in the communities other than the city of Detroit" - a move that would effectively disenfranchise one of the nation's major predominantly Black cities.

Mark Brewer, an election law expert and a former chairman of the Michigan Democratic Party, noted that Ms. Palmer's motion would have blocked certification for Detroit, where Black residents make up 78 percent of the population, and certified the results for communities like Livonia, where the Black population is 4.4 percent.

"Monica Palmer sat there and said she's willing to approve the results of the lily-white city of Livonia, which had the second-highest number of out-of-balance precincts, but she won't certify the city of Detroit," Mr. Brewer said. "There is no reason to single out the city of Detroit for this racist treatment."

The deadlock looked at first like a rare win for Mr. Trump, who, despite repeated losses in court and a string of baseless claims, has continued undaunted with a relentless legal, procedural and rhetorical assault on the country's election system.

Even after the board cleared its initial stalemate, the night provided fresh evidence that, at the very least, Mr. Trump's campaign is managing to disrupt what has long been an orderly process of certifying the clear winner of the popular and Electoral College votes and ensuring a peaceful transfer of power. Though Mr. Trump's supporters have appeared to revel in his attacks, the Michigan confusion showcased a counterforce - angry voters who would not abide any possibility that their votes would be nullified in the partisan wrangling.

Though the president faces impossible odds in his attempt to force a different result from the one voters rendered, he and top Republican allies have shown that they have no intention of ceasing their attacks on the voting system.

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Trump supporters protested in Detroit this month. Joseph R. Biden Jr.'s vote count in Michigan continued to grow after Election Day as ballots were counted. Credit... John Moore/Getty Images

The chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, Ronna McDaniel, a Michigan native with strong ties to the state's Republicans, said on Twitter after the initial deadlock, "We need to further investigate, and every legal vote needs to be counted to ensure the integrity of the election." There were no indications that any of the issues in Wayne County were related to fraud.

The Republican moves in Michigan came on the same day that Mr. Trump ousted the chief of the Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which is responsible for protecting the national voting infrastructure and has aggressively disputed the false claims by Mr. Trump and his supporters that election software improperly gave votes to Mr. Biden.

Though the night ended with a resolution, the fight at the Wayne County canvassing board pointed to how Mr. Trump's supporters were focusing on even the minutiae of state certification processes that are usually shielded from the hardball tactics of national political campaigns. Mr. Biden won the heavily Democratic county by nearly 323,000 votes; he prevailed in Michigan by about 148,000 votes, or 50.5 percent to Mr. Trump's 47.9 percent.

Michigan has 83 county canvassing boards, each of which was to certify its results by Tuesday. Next, the process moves to Michigan's Board of State Canvassers, where the final results are to be finalized by a Nov. 23 deadline.

At issue in Wayne County were minor discrepancies in which the number of votes cast did not match the number of voters listed as having shown up to vote in various election precincts. This could have stemmed from scenarios like a voter leaving a long line, or an absentee ballot kicked out of a tabulator, among other possibilities. Most involved a handful of votes, and were the types of inconsistencies that are frequently found during canvassing processes without leading to deadlocks like the one that happened on Tuesday.

The secretary of state, Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat, said in a statement earlier on Tuesday that the Board of Elections would be ready to canvass and address the discrepancies in the Wayne County results if the state canvassing board requested it. That board is scheduled to meet at 1:30 p.m. Eastern on Wednesday.

"Michigan's Bureau of Elections stands ready to fulfill its duty to complete the canvas for Wayne County, address any clerical errors and improve the quality of the canvass over all," Ms. Benson said. "Importantly, this is not an indication that any votes were improperly cast or tabulated."

A senior adviser to Mr. Biden, speaking on the condition of anonymity, dismissed the trouble at the canvassing board as one in a series of stunts by Mr. Trump and his allies to stave off the inevitable certification of a Biden victory at the Electoral College.

A senior adviser to Mr. Trump, Justin Clark, said the campaign had played no role at the canvassing board. "This wasn't us," he said.

As anxiety spread among Democrats across the country, Detroit officials expressed certainty that the board's initial failure to certify would not stop the state from fully certifying all of its results before the Electoral College completes its nationwide vote in mid-December. And, they said, it would not lead to the disenfranchisement of Detroit voters or, for that matter, any significant shift in the presidential election results in Michigan.

Christopher Thomas, a senior adviser to the Detroit city clerk and a longtime expert in election administration, called the board's failure to certify the results "a blip on the road."

"This is not something that's going to stop the Electoral College from meeting," he said.

Before the board's reversal, the state Democratic Party issued a blistering statement accusing the two Republicans of overt partisan politics, actions that were "not only shameful but a complete dereliction of duties."

"This action does away with a long and proud history of Wayne County Board of Canvassers acting in a truly bipartisan fashion, protecting the sanctity of the vote and instilling confidence in Wayne County residents that their votes were indeed counted and counted correctly," Lavora Barnes, the chair of the Michigan Democratic Party, said in a statement. "Which is exactly what happened this year."

The Wayne canvassing board was not the last hurdle in the Michigan certification process. The Board of State Canvassers, which must deliver final state certification, consists of two Democrats, Jeannette Bradshaw and Julie Matuzak, and two Republicans, Norman D. Shinkle and Aaron Van Langevelde.

Mr. Shinkle's wife, Mary Shinkle, filed an affidavit in support of a lawsuit the Trump campaign has brought in federal court lawsuit alleging voting irregularities in Wayne County. The affidavit claimed, among other things, that poll workers had been "extremely rude and aggressive" to her and other observers, that they had not allowed her to look over their shoulders as they processed ballots, and that envelopes and ballot stubs had not been securely stored. The judge in the state case had dismissed similar affidavits as based on "an incorrect interpretation of events."

Tuesday's drama stoked fears among Democrats that Mr. Trump was working to force Michigan and other critical states to miss their certification deadlines so that Republican-controlled legislatures could appoint their own slates of pro-Trump delegates to the Electoral College, regardless of popular vote victories for Mr. Biden - moves that Mr. Biden's lawyers have dismissed as legally futile.

Mike Shirkey, the Republican majority leader in the Michigan State Senate, said in an interview on Tuesday with Bridge Michigan, a local news outlet, that the Legislature would not move to appoint its own slate of electors.

"That's not going to happen," Mr. Shirkey said.

The state board is supposed to certify its results on Nov. 23, but Mr. Thomas, the adviser to the Detroit city clerk, said that the state would have until mid-December to submit its tallies to the Electoral College, which he said was plenty of time, even if the state board deadlocks, which would force the fight into the courts.

"When they deadlock, the court generally tells them, 'Your job is ministerial,' which means you count the votes," he said, "and you publish the certified results."

Kathleen Gray reported from Detroit, and Jim Rutenberg and Nick Corasaniti from New York. Maggie Astor and Annie Karni contributed reporting.

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Michigan Republicans Backtrack After Refusing to Certify Election Results

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G.O.P. members of the elections board in Wayne County, which includes Detroit and is heavily Democratic, reversed their decision to hold up approval of Joe Biden's victory after an outcry. DETROIT - Republican members of a key elections board in the Detroit area refused on Tuesday to certify the county's election results in a nakedly partisan effort to hold up certification of Joseph R.

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Dogs can't speak human. Here's the tech that could change that.

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Dogs can't speak human. Here's the tech that could change that.

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What if your pet dog or cat could talk instead of barking or meowing? You'd know just how much Rover loves you - and maybe how sorry Fluffy is about that mess on the carpet.

We all know that's not about to happen. But recent advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning suggest the longstanding dream of being able to converse with animals - in a limited fashion - could become a reality.

With the help of AI, scientists are learning how to translate animals' vocalizations and facial expressions into something we can understand. Recent advances include an AI system that listens in on marmoset monkeys to parse the dozen calls they use to communicate with each other and one that reads sheep's faces to determine whether an animal is in pain.

Taking note of the research, an Amazon-sponsored report on future trends released last summer predicted that in 10 years, we'll have a translator for pets.

Dr. Con Slobodchikoff, a professor emeritus of biology at Northern Arizona University and the author of "Chasing Doctor Dolittle: Learning the Language of Animals," is on the vanguard of animal communication. More than 30 years studying prairie dogs have convinced him that these North American rodents have a sophisticated form of vocal communication that is nothing less than language.

The prairie dogs make high-pitched calls to alert the group to the presence of a predator. Slobodchinoff discovered that those calls vary according to the type of the predator as well as its size. The animals can combine their calls in various ways and can even use them to indicate the color of a nearby human's clothing.

But Slobodchinoff wasn't content just to understand prairie dogs. With help from a computer scientist colleague, he developed an algorithm that turns the vocalizations into English. And last year, he founded a company called Zoolingua with the goal of developing a similar tool that translates pet sounds, facial expressions, and body movements.

"I thought, if we can do this with prairie dogs, we can certainly do it with dogs and cats," Slobodchikoff said.

The work is at an early stage. Slobodchikoff is amassing thousands of videos of dogs showing various barks and body movements. He'll use the videos to teach an AI algorithm about these communication signals. The algorithm still needs to be told what each bark or tail wag means, and at this point that means humans must offer their own interpretations. But Slobodchikoff aims to incorporate the growing scientific research that uses careful experiments rather than guesswork to decipher the true meanings of dogs' behavior.

Slobodchinoff's ultimate goal is to create a device that can be pointed at a dog to translate its woofs into English words - for example, Slobodchiknoff said, "'I want to eat now'...or 'I want to go for a walk.'"

Being able to communicate with animals would mean more than just forging closer emotional ties with them. It could eliminate the guesswork in caring for animals and even save their lives.

In the U.S. alone, an estimated 3 million unwanted cats and dogs are euthanized each year - in many cases because of their poorly understood behavioral problems. But a dog that exhibits aggression could simply be afraid - and if we have the technology to understand its fears, we might be able to find a way to spare its life. "You could use that information and instead of backing the dog into a corner, give the dog more space," Slobodchikoff said.

Similarly, AI technology could make things easier for farmers and ranchers - for instance, by quickly identifying animals that are sick by detecting signs of pain in their faces.

"Farmers find it difficult to recognize pain in the sheep," said Dr. Krista McLennan, a lecturer in animal behavior at the University of Chester in England. She developed a scale for estimating pain levels based on the animals' facial expressions - retracted lips, folded ears, and so on.

But when training people to use the scale proved difficult, Dr. Peter Robinson, a University of Cambridge professor who has developed computer systems that read human facial expressions, turned McLennan's scale into an AI algorithm. When the computer running the algorithm was shown hundreds of photos of sheep - some healthy and some not - it learned to tell which animals were in pain.

Though confined to the lab for now, the technology could one day be commercialized - perhaps in the form of a camera that automatically photographs sheep as they pass through a gate, Robinson said. If an animal is showing pain, the rancher would get an automatic alert.

Such a system could be much faster than humans at spotting sick animals - and more reliable. "The reason I'm slightly optimistic is that in our research with people's faces, our automatic system was as good as the top 10 percent of people - much better than the average person," Robinson said.

Robinson and McLennan want to expand their work to other animals - and perhaps for indicators other than pain. "We are looking at pain because that's the most significant in terms of welfare," McLennan said. "But there's nothing stopping us from looking at other emotions as well. What does a happy sheep look like? What does a sad sheep look like? But there still needs to be a lot of work done."
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Even if an AI translator becomes a reality, it doesn't necessarily mean you'll ever have a heart-to-heart conversation with your pet. There are vast differences between human and animal cognition, and we are a long way from understanding the latter.

One technology that may give us access to dogs' mysterious mental life is brain imaging. In humans, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) can be used to detect certain mental states by looking at brain activity.

"I see something like that very possible with dogs," said Dr. Gregory Berns, a neuroscientist at Emory University and the author of "What It's Like to Be a Dog: And Other Adventures in Animal Neuroscience." Berns has been training dogs to lie still inside brain scanners as the machine reads their brain activity. Already, his experiments have opened a window into what dogs might think or feel - for example, he's found evidence that dogs see us as friends, and not just hands that feed them.

"Their reward system in the brain is driven as much by praise as food," Berns said. "This reinforces the notion that the dog enjoys the social bond with humans by itself."

Maybe someday technology can turn us all into Dr. Dolittles so we can make the wonderful bond between people and their pets even tighter.

FOLLOW NBC NEWS MACH ON TWITTER, FACEBOOK, AND INSTAGRAM.

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Dogs can't speak human. Here's the tech that could change that.

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What if your pet dog or cat could talk instead of barking or meowing? You'd know just how much Rover loves you - and maybe how sorry Fluffy is about that mess on the carpet. We all know that's not about to happen.

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the successor to the b-2 bomber has been announced as the b-21 raider the latest in spy plane technology 

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the successor to the b-2 bomber has been announced as the b-21 raider the latest in spy plane technology 

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https://www.northropgrumman.com/what-we-do/air/b-21-raider/

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On Monday, November 16 at 11:01 p.m. EST, 04:01 UTC on November 17, SpaceX's Dragon autonomously docked with the International Space Station (ISS) after Falcon 9 launched the spacecraft to orbit from historic Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Sunday, November 15, 2020.

As part of the Commercial Crew Program, NASA astronauts Mike Hopkins, Victor Glover, Shannon Walker, and JAXA astronaut Soichi Noguchi flew aboard Dragon on its first six-month operational mission to the space station. After its approximately six-month stay at the orbiting laboratory, Dragon and the astronauts will return to Earth and splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Florida.

Following Dragon's second demonstration mission (Demo-2), NASA certified SpaceX for operational crew missions to and from the space station. Crew-1 is the first of three scheduled Dragon human spaceflights over the course of 2020 and 2021.

The return of human spaceflight to the United States with one of the safest, most advanced systems ever built is a turning point for America's future space exploration, and it lays the groundwork for missions to the Moon, Mars, and beyond.

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On Monday, November 16 at 11:01 p.m. EST, 04:01 UTC on November 17, SpaceX's Dragon autonomously docked with the International Space Station (ISS) after Falcon 9 launched the spacecraft to orbit from historic Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Sunday, November 15, 2020.

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Vincent Reffet, a 36-year-old French stuntman, had also broken a record jumping from the world's tallest building.

Vincent Reffet performing a stunt in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in 2013. Credit... Vincent Thian/Associated Press

Vincent Reffet, a French stuntman known for limit-defying jumps from the world's tallest towers and highest mountains, and aerial feats alongside planes using a jetpack, died in Dubai during a training session on Tuesday, his company said. He was 36.

A free-flying world champion and avid BASE jumper ( involving leaps from towering static objects rather than from a plane), Mr. Reffet had undertaken breathtaking feats including a record-breaking jump of over 2,700 feet from a platform above the Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest building, and a midair dive into a plane from a 13,000-foot mountain in Switzerland.

Jetman Dubai, of which he was a member, confirmed his death but provided no further details. The police in Dubai and the United Arab Emirates' General Civil Aviation Authority did not respond to requests for comment.

"Vince was a talented athlete and a much-loved and respected member of our team," Jetman Dubai said in a statement, adding that the group was working with the authorities.

Mr. Reffet's stature soared in 2015 after he caught the attention of Yves Rossy, a Swiss aviation enthusiast who became the first man to fly with a jet-propelled wing and later invited Mr. Reffet to become a second "Jetman" for his group.

In Dubai, the group worked with XDubai, an extreme-sports brand that has been endorsed by the crown prince. In one stunt that went viral, the pair flew with jetpacks above Dubai beside an Emirates Airbus 380, the world's largest passenger aircraft.

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Mr. Reffet, left, with Yves Rossy, a Swiss aviation enthusiast, before a flight in Dubai in 2015. Credit... Kamran Jebreili/Associated Press

The son of two sky divers, Mr. Reffet grew up in Annecy, in eastern France. He was introduced to the world of aerial stunts at an early age, making his first solo jump in 2000, according to a biography on the site of Redbull, the energy drink that sponsored him. Many of his feats were made with his friend and close collaborator Frederic Fugen, with whom he also started Soul Flyers, a team of parachutists and jumpers.

In interviews, Mr. Reffet had spoken of the liberation that flying with a jetpack gave him and the joy he felt pushing boundaries.

"It's the sensation of freedom," he told The Associated Press in 2015. "When I am skydiving, I have like this feeling of freedom - I can like pretty much go where I want - but always going down." Yet with the jetpack, he said, "I can fly like a bird."

BASE jumping is one of the world's most dangerous recreational sports, and even with a jetpack, Mr. Reffet was aware of the dangers involved in his stunts.

"To be completely autonomous, there is a risk, you know, to lose your life. Something goes wrong, you have to act fast," he said in " Loft: The Jetman Story," a documentary. And the exhilaration of feats like zooming into a plane over Swiss mountains was a "mental" battle that would leave a person "sick to your stomach," he told the Agence-France Presse news agency last month.

His feats over landscapes like Dubai's skyline, Europe's highest mountain, Mont Blanc and Tianmen Cave in China, shot in high definition and posted on YouTube, brought audiences around the world into the experience.

⁣In February, he accomplished what Jetman Dubai called a first: taking off with a jetpack from the ground before making a high-altitude flight, a move reminiscent of the Marvel hero Iron Man.

He also recently said on social media that there was "much more to come."

Fans paid tribute to Mr. Reffet on his Instagram page on Wednesday, with some saying that he had inspired them to enter the sport. "You and Fred are both the reason I started jumping 7 years ago," one wrote, referring to Mr. Fugen, his collaborator. "Forever fly free."

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'Jetman' Who Flew Beside a Plane Dies While Training in Dubai

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Vincent Reffet, a 36-year-old French stuntman, had also broken a record jumping from the world's tallest building. Vincent Reffet, a French stuntman known for limit-defying jumps from the world's tallest towers and highest mountains, and aerial feats alongside planes using a jetpack, died in Dubai during a training session on Tuesday, his company said.

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victory for biden isn't enough on its own to heal the wounds trump inflicted on europe - cnn

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Analysis: Joe Biden's victory isn't enough on its own to heal the wounds Trump inflicted on Europe

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Joe Biden's victory in the US presidential election was met with a sigh of relief across the vast majority of European capitals. In the eyes of most, Donald Trump's presidency saw the European Union's most important ally vacillate between uninterest and outright aggression.

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Welcome to Nova Scotia, the land that proves that beating back the virus is possible.

By

Photographs by

Ms. Nolen is a journalist.

HALIFAX, Canada - This morning, my children went to school - school, in an old brick building, where they lined up to go in the scuffed front doors. I went to work out at the gym, the real gym, where I huffed and puffed in a sweaty group class. And a few days ago, my partner and I hosted a dinner party, gathering eight friends around the dining room table for a boisterous night that went too late. Remember those?

Where I'm living, we gather without fear. Life is unfolding much as it did a year ago. This magical, virus-free world is just one long day's drive away from the Empire State Building - in a parallel dimension called Nova Scotia.

This is one of the four Atlantic provinces that cling to the coast of Canada, north and east of Maine. In Canada, these are typically known as "have-not provinces," economically depressed areas dependent on cash transfers from wealthier provinces to the West.

In the pandemic era, however, "have not" takes on new meaning.

Our coronavirus lockdown began swiftly in March and was all-encompassing. The provincial borders were slammed shut. In Nova Scotia, even public hiking trails were closed, a big deal for a population used to the freedom to head into the wilderness at will. But the lockdown worked, and we released our collectively held breath as new case numbers dropped to the single digits. Restrictions eased in May and lifted in June; in early July, the Atlantic provinces "bubbled" together, allowing free travel among them - but maintaining a strict quarantine rule for anyone who came from outside. And the border to the south, the one with the United States, has remained firmly closed.

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The horrific pandemic news from south of the border feels like a looming shadow these days. The numbers coming from the United States are almost ungraspable: 120,000, 140,000, 180,000 new cases a day. When I talk to friends there, they are locked up in their houses, trying to work with the kids running through the room, or, increasingly often, sick or recovering from Covid-19. Case counts are also climbing in other parts of Canada. My brother and his family in Montreal are once again in lockdown. The pictures I post in our group chat, of slumber parties and speedskating races, are a surreal contrast to their circumscribed days.

The pandemic has changed the way people live, here, too. We stand six feet apart in the line at the grocery store. There is plexiglass around the cashier at Starbucks. I had to keep my dinner party guest list to 10 people in total. Nova Scotia has required everyone to wear a mask in any indoor public space, including upper grade schools, since July. But that seems normal, by now, just one more thing in the morning: got your homework, got your lunch, got your mask? I can go days without the virus really intruding on my life.

And word has gotten out: The Halifax real-estate market is frenzied this fall. Our small, pretty city has relatively affordable housing, beaches and wooded parks. But historically a lack of jobs kept ambitious people away. Now that so many of us work from the kitchen table, the pokey economy matters much less - and Torontonians are fleeing the big city, and the virus, for a charmed life in the bubble.

Geography and demographics have helped Atlantic Canada establish this alternate universe. The population is small, about 2.5 million people across the region, none of it too densely populated. Newfoundland and Prince Edward Island are, well, islands, which makes border control easier. Only one province in this bubble has a land border with the United States, and only one an active border with Quebec, the hardest-hit province. The Halifax airport is the largest in the region, and it was receiving only about a dozen international flights each day when the pandemic began. There are none now. We're a very small New Zealand.

When I asked Robert Strang, Nova Scotia's avuncular public health chief, what he thought allowed us to maintain this level of normality, he added another ingredient to my list: Public health officials, not politicians, set the policy here about what opens. And people (mostly) follow the rules on closures and gatherings and masks. "The message has been that we need to do it to keep each other safe," he told me. "I think there's something about our culture, our collective ethic, if you will, that means people accept that."

The pandemic has caused real pain in this region: the economy, heavily dependent on tourism, has regained only about 80 percent of the jobs that were lost in April, and won't fully recover with the borders closed. This morning I saw another small business in my neighborhood with a closing-down notice taped to a shuttered window. Eviction rates are climbing. Residents of long-term care homes can have only limited visitors. If we leave the region, we have to spend two weeks in quarantine when we come back, and that can make a person feel trapped.

We argue all the time about what level of isolation and restriction are appropriate; but we have a sense here in Halifax of what has kept us safe and we know that those things are deeply controversial in the United States: public health care; public media; a social safety net. It's baffling to watch the epidemic in the United States spin wildly out of control, knowing it could easily be different. We know that it could, because we're living it.

At my dinner party last week, my friends and I raised a glass to our good fortune, and to Dr. Strang. Our freedom feels precious and fragile. It has not come cheap. But it's a steadying thing, the knowledge that we will make hard choices for each other, and that sometimes when we do, the reward is a life we recognize.

Stephanie Nolen is a journalist based in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
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Opinion | I Am Living in a Covid-Free World Just a Few Hundred Miles from Manhattan

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Welcome to Nova Scotia, the land that proves that beating back the virus is possible. By Photographs by Ms. Nolen is a journalist. HALIFAX, Canada - This morning, my children went to school - school, in an old brick building, where they lined up to go in the scuffed front doors.