#Carolyn Month 2022

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

The Georgia Republican Party paid at least $220,000 last year to two law firms defending fake presidential electors who could face charges as part of a Fulton County investigation into efforts by Donald Trump and his allies to overturn his 2020 loss.

According to recently filed campaign disclosures, the state party paid Strickland Debrow of Newnan, GA, about $170,000. Atlanta-based Pierson Law LLC, received roughly $52,000 from the Georgia GOP.

The disclosures come as outgoing state party chair David Shafer, one of the 16 phony electors, announced last week that he wouldn't run for another term. In his farewell letter, Shafer revealed that the party paid the elector's legal expenses.

"Thankfully, our State Executive Committee voted to ratify their acts and pay (the elector's) legal expenses," he wrote. "I have raised the money to honor that commitment so that none of them have had to pay a penny out of pocket."

A spokesperson for the Georgia Republican Party didn't respond to questions before publication. Representatives for Strickland Debrow declined to comment for this story. Holly Pierson of Pierson Law told 11Alive that none of the electors "did anything wrong."

"It’s incredibly frustrating that any of the Republican electors were put in the position of having to obtain counsel when it is so abundantly clear legally that none of them did anything wrong," Pierson said. "Recognizing that fact, the Georgia Republican Party voted to step up and protect its membership, which was the principled and courageous thing to do. The Republican electors recused themselves from the vote to ratify their actions and cover their legal expenses, which was otherwise unanimous."

Sixteen Georgians served as phony electors for Trump. They are:

• Shafer •Joseph Brannan •James "Ken" Carroll •Vikki Townsend Consiglio •Carolyn Hall Fisher •Burt Jones •Gloria Kay Godwin •David G. Hanna •Mark W. Hennesy •Mark Amick •John Downey •Cathleen Alston Latham •Daryl Moody •Brad Carver •Shaw Still •C.B. Yadav

The two firms paid by the Georgia GOP represented 11 of the electors — Amick, Brannan, Carver, Consiglio, Downey, Fisher, Godwin, Latham, Shafer, Still and Yadav.

Fulton County prosecutors honed in on the electors as part of their investigation to determine if the former president and his allies violated state law after the 2020 Presidential election. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis said in a July 2022 court filing that the electors could face charges.

A Fulton County Superior Court Judge ruled last year that Willis couldn't prosecute Burt Jones, who currently serves as Georgia's Lieutenant Governor, because Willis hosted a fundraiser for Jones' Democratic opponent ahead of the November election. The Prosecuting Attorneys Council of Georgia will determine if Jones should be investigated by a special prosecutor.

Legal experts previously told 11Alive that the electors may face fraud or forgery charges for the documents they submitted to state authorities and the National Archives. The 16 Republicans said that they were the duly elected presidential electors, and they falsely claimed that Trump won the election.

The Fulton County Special Purpose Grand Jury finished its eight-month investigation last month. The panel heard from 75 witnesses. Three portions of the jury's report was released Thursday. Jurors expressed concern that at least one of the witnesses may have lied during testimony. Key sections of the report remain secret.

[valenunez24]

TAYLOR SWIFT WINS GRAMMY IN HER CATEGORY.

Taylor Swift made history this Sunday in Los Angeles by winning the fourth Grammy of her career for the album of the year with her "Midnights", at a gala that had women as winners. The 66th edition of the Grammy Awards was held at the Arena in Los Angeles on February 4, 2024.

Taylor Swift manages to make history at the 2024 Grammys by achieving her fourth award for the best album of the year.

In my opinion, it was a very good album, which was released on October 21, 2022. It had a great impact with the girls. His concerts on The Eras Tour were a success as well as his music, which is very good.

MBAPPÉ INFORMS PSG THAT HE WILL LEAVE IN JUNE AND ASSURES THEM THAT HE HAS NOT YET SIGNED WITH MADRID.

On Tuesday morning, Kylian Mbappé took another step in the liturgy of his departure from Paris Saint-Germain after seven seasons. He met with the president of the club, Nasser Al-Khelaifi, for about an hour in the new PSG sports city in Poissy and, according to sources familiar with the conversation, he confirmed what he had already told him in writing in a letter he sent in May last year: he leaves when the season is over. At the meeting, the specific economic conditions in which the exit is going to be articulated were left pending. It even took months to close the way in which Mbappé will somehow compensate PSG, despite the fact that his contract expires on June 30. When they close that aspect, they will make a joint communication.

I think Mbappé has given Paris Saint Germain a good career for several years. And it's time for him to make his fame and grow up as a professional soccer player in a team more than his level. Real Madrid and Paris Saint Germain are very well-cataloged teams, however Real Madrid statistically speaking, has more goals, goals per minute, shots on goal, and successful passes.

THROUGH YOUR GAZE, NEW MOVIE!

The love of Raquel and Ares in the literary trilogy of the Venezuelan author Adriana Godoy captured thousands of readers and has also repeated its success on the screen with the adaptations starring Clara Galle and Julio Peña. After its first two installments, the third film entitled Through Your Look reends the audience with the couple who has faced several tests of their relationship. These are facts you should know about the romance film that will be released on February 23, 2024.

I think it will be a good movie, since the first 2 movies were quite good and with an excellent plot. I believe that many people with a long-distance relationship will feel very identified with the movie. Since such a love is difficult to carry.

THE KEY SPRING/SUMMER 2024 TRENDS TO KNOW NOW.

The most talked-about collection at the spring/summer 2024 fashion shows was the one that wasn’t there. Phoebe Philo, yet to unveil the first fruits of her eponymous line, which had been originally slated to debut online in September some six years after she departed Céline, dominated the fashion news cycle throughout the month. As the spring/summer 2024 fashion trends piled up, designers waited nervously to see if their collections would be eclipsed by a spontaneous digital drop from a woman many revere as fashion’s messiah.

Statement gowns are out and discreet chic – buoyed up with wardrobe staples including trench coats, pencil skirts, trouser suits and good jeans – is in. At the fashion search engine Tagwalk, which scanned more than 11,000 images from the spring/summer 2024 shows in New York, London, Milan and Paris, looks that were tagged “minimalism” were up 46 per cent on the previous spring/summer 2023 season. Logo-tagged looks, meanwhile, were down 52 per cent, while ’90s-tagged looks were up 42 per cent – the latter was also the most searched tag. With the 25th anniversary of the untimely death of Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy coming up next year, meanwhile, the Succession-fuelled “quiet luxury” trend is segueing into something that more closely resembles the understated ’90s-New-York elegance of the former Calvin Klein publicist.

In my opinion, this new fashion that is approaching is perfect, I think all women will look beautiful, highlighting their beautiful body. Creating more new styles with the passage of time and looking incredible.

[beardedmrbean]

A man in his mid-twenties invited a woman to his home in Rotterdam, a Dutch city about 15 miles south of The Hague, in the summer of 2021, and the pair began having sex.

Initially he was wearing a condom — as the woman had required — but at one point, the man secretly slipped it off.

Now, almost two years later, a Dutch court has convicted him of “stealthing,” the practice of removing a condom during sex without consent, according to a March 14 press release.

The court acquitted the man of rape charges, but considered his actions to be a form of coercion and handed him a three-month prison sentence and made him pay a fine of about $1,058.

It is the first-ever such conviction in the Netherlands, according to NL Times.

The practice of stealthing, also referred to as non-consensual condom removal (NCRR), has been the subject of growing scrutiny and proposed legislation in recent years.

What are the harms?

“Nonconsensual removal of condoms really can be a distressing experience for someone to go through,” Maybell Romero, an associate law professor at Tulane University Law School, told McClatchy News. “There are distinct harms.”

The practice potentially exposes victims, unknowingly, to sexually transmitted infections as well as unwanted pregnancies.

On top of that, the breach of trust often leaves victims with a variety of negative emotions.

“People feel shame, they feel anxiety and revulsion that is very much related to feelings that people might feel after rape or sexual assault,” Romero said.

A significant number of people have reported experiencing stealthing, according to recent studies.

Twelve percent of women aged 21 to 30 stated that a sexual partner of theirs had removed condoms during sex against their wishes, according to a 2019 study published in the journal Womens Health Issues.

In an earlier study, 32% of women and 19% of gay men reported experiencing secret condom removals during sex, according to a 2018 Australian study published in the journal PLoS ONE.

Is stealthing illegal in the United States?

Currently, the practice is not criminalized at the state or federal level in the United States, according to Romero.

This is partly because, unlike typical cases of rape or assault, the sexual encounter starts off as consensual, putting it in a unique legal situation.

“It’s really interesting trying to find out what to do with this concept,” Romero told McClatchy News. “I think a lot of folks who experienced it didn’t know what to make of it because these encounters start with consent.”

California became the first state to pass a law against stealthing in 2021, according to Michael Malk, an attorney who has represented victims of sexual assault in the Golden State.

The practice has been added to “California’s definition of civil sexual battery, which allows a victim of stealthing to sue for civil damages,” Malk told McClatchy News. “California has not, however, explicitly made stealthing a crime which could result in prosecution.”

The bill passed following failed attempts at similar legislation in New York and Wisconsin, the Associated Press reported.

Lawmakers in Congress have also pushed to pass legislation on stealthing recently, but their attempts have been unsuccessful.

The Stealthing Act of 2022, introduced by former New York Rep. Carolyn Maloney, would have classified the act as a form of sexual violence and would create a civil right for victims to sue for damages.

Additionally, the Consent is Key Act, also proposed in 2022, would have increased funding for federal domestic violence programs in states that pass their own stealthing laws, thereby incentivizing future legislation.

But without successful legislation from Congress, the decision to outlaw stealthing will continue to fall to state legislatures.

As to whether more of them will follow California’s lead, Romero said, “It’s hard to say.”

“Legislatures are always very antsy about having to get into the weeds of sexual assault,” Romero said. “If there is movement it’ll likely fall along that left versus right schism.”

[reasoningdaily]

Long-time Los Angeles resident Walter Foster, 80, holds up a sign as the Reparations Task Force listens to public input at the California Science Center in Los Angeles on Sept. 22, 2022. (Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

San Francisco resident Pia Harris hopes for reparations in her lifetime. But the nonprofit program director is not confident that California lawmakers will turn the recommendations of a first-in-the-nation task force into concrete legislation, given pushback from opponents who say slavery was a thing of the past.

It frustrates Harris, 45, that reparations opponents won’t acknowledge that life for Black people did not improve with the abolition of chattel slavery in 1865. Black families have been unable to accumulate wealth through property ownership and higher education. Black boys and teenagers are still told to watch out for law enforcement, and Black businesses struggle to get loans, she said.

“I want them to stop acting like it’s so far removed, and it’s not currently happening,” said Harris, of the lingering effects of slavery and discrimination. “I want them to understand that we’re still going through things now as a community. It’s not — it hasn’t been over for us.”

Black Californians have watched closely as the state’s reparations task force forged ahead on a two-year study, finally signing off this month on a hefty list of recommendations that will be submitted to lawmakers. It’s uncertain what lawmakers will do with the proposals, which include payments to descendants of enslaved people and a formal apology from the state.

The Associated Press interviewed a handful of Black advocates and residents who have followed the task force’s work — as well as those who have long been engaged in the conversation about reparations. Both activists who fought for civil rights in the 1960s and young entrepreneurs echoed a common fear: that California’s exploration of reparations will become another example of the government offering false hope.

Reparations proposals for African Americans date back to 1865, when Union General William Tecumseh Sherman ordered that newly freed people be given up to 40 acres of land. That didn’t happen. In recent decades, Democratic lawmakers in Congress have tried to pass legislation to study federal reparations, to no avail.

In 2020, California became the first state to approve the creation of a reparations task force to study the state’s role in perpetuating systemic racism and to find ways to atone. Although California entered the union as a “free” state, it did not enact laws guaranteeing African Americans’ freedom, according to a draft report from the task force.

The state currently faces a projected $31.5 billion budget shortfall, which may reduce the possibility of legislative support for some of the task force’s more ambitious recommendations, including direct payments to eligible residents and the creation of a new state agency to help those families research their ancestors and file claims.

One key lawmaker, who is also a task force member, has already warned residents not to expect large payments.

The task force did not recommend specific payment amounts, but estimates from economists say the state is responsible for more than $500 billion due to decades of over-policing, mass incarceration and redlining that kept Black families from buying homes in appreciating neighborhoods.

Damien Posey, 44, grew up in historically Black neighborhoods in San Francisco, where he heard gunshots at night and was bussed to schools in neighborhoods that weren’t so welcoming to Black children. He spent a decade in prison on a weapons charge and later started a nonprofit called Us 4 Us Bay Area to mentor youth and reduce gun violence.

Meaningful reparations would include an official state apology, public funding for nonprofit organizations that assist Black residents, and cash reparations for every eligible person for the pay denied to their ancestors, who built this country with their labor, he said.

“And our people deserve it, honestly,” he said.

Compensation is an important part of state reparations proposals because Black Americans have “been deprived of a lot of money,” due to discriminatory policies, said Les Robinson, 66, an associate pastor at The Sanctuary church in Santa Clarita, about 30 miles north of Los Angeles.

But money isn’t everything, Robinson said, and the task force’s other important work shouldn’t be lost in a fixation on dollar figures alone. He pointed to efforts to retell California history through a different lens — one that examines the state’s role in perpetuating systemic racism despite its label as a “free” state.

Robinson was “hit by a tsunami of emotions” when he learned in 2017 he was descended from a man who founded the first Black church in California and played a critical role in the state’s groundbreaking African American community.

He was disappointed that more people — himself included — were not taught the story of Daniel Blue, his great-great-great-grandfather, who created what is now known as the historic Saint Andrews African Methodist Episcopal Church in Sacramento.

Robinson is skeptical that reparations will be approved by lawmakers, if history is an indicator.

“People wonder why African Americans at large are angry,” he said. “Because we’ve been lied to. We’ve been bamboozled. For centuries — not decades — centuries.”

Like Robinson, former Black Panther Party member Joan Tarika Lewis has been researching her lineage and was proud to discover that several ancestors came to California in the mid-19th century and helped other Black people escape slavery.

Lewis, who became the party’s first female activist when she joined as a teenager, wants more Black residents to learn about their heritage and for all Californians to know more about the contributions of Black community and civic leaders. Lewis, 73, also wants to raise more awareness about what the community has lost.

Her father operated a boxing gym in West Oakland that served as a community space for young people to learn from their elders. But government officials took the land, and in its place built a freeway and commuter line. The family was paid a pittance for what would go on to become valuable San Francisco Bay Area property.

Lewis is optimistic that state lawmakers can make reparations happen if they have the political will.

So is Vincent Justin, a 75-year-old Richmond resident and retired bus driver who has fought for racial equity for decades. He marched in the 1960s with Martin Luther King Jr., Huey P. Newton, Stokely Carmichael and other major civil rights figures.

Though the fight has been long, he hopes reparations will one day be approved at the federal level.

“I think that we’re going to come to a fair and equitable ending,” he said.

[expensivetinfoil]

"What's My Age Again?..."

2022 was a big, messy, mostly incomprehensible year. It feels weird to consider its ending when I have no memory of it ever beginning. But the calendar tells me that it did begin and that in a few hours it will end, so here we are.

I spent half of 2022 running around the city in a five-dollar mylar gold hoodie with my phone flailing out in front of me shooting a movie in an effort not to go insane. While I can make no claims on my sanity, a movie has been shot and I spent the second half of the year—after a needed break—starting to make sense of the footage that was lovingly captured with my friends.

In between the moviemaking, there was a mad flurry of change…

I started working for The Film Foundation and over the past 12 months helped launch the Restoration Screening Room—an online space that screens a TFF restoration for free once a month.

DUELLE published more podcasts and film criticism before Carolyn and I dove headfirst into movie-making, something we are both very excited about. There will be more from us soon about our projects and purpose.

I banned together with my fellow workers at Anthology Film Archives and fought for a better contract via a 1-day strike that brought our community out into the streets in a very inspiring and fun way.

I threw in the towel of my almost 20 years as a vegetarian and adopted a come-what-may diet that doesn’t fit into a box of any kind outside of my making an effort to eat locally and organically whenever possible. I still love vegetables and prioritize them but my god, pepperoni pizza and roasted chicken!

I went to Barclays with Marie and David to see THE CAVS IN A PLAY-IN GAME!! (before this new system they would have simply been in the playoffs but I digress....) Watching this team brought me so much joy this year.

Alongside some beloved friends and very special artists, I presented a few of my films at The Roxy Cinema—it was so great to share our vision of filmmaking with an audience of new faces at a truly fun movie theater.

I visited my dear friend Madeleine in Snow Creek, CA and she took me to Pioneer Town (Roy Rogers! Gene Autry!) and Joshua Tree, helping me to inexplicably usher in a new decade alongside some supportive bunnies. The day after my birthday I awoke at sunset in a yurt outside Joshua Tree and went outside to greet the day and found myself face to face with a coyote and ever since then I’ve been trying to channel that energy.

I left the Upper East Side (Goodbye Donohues!) for Ridgewood (Hello Pizzeria Panina!), majorly downsizing and in turn creating more time in which I can make work and read and walk and cook and see friends.

As soon as I had moved, I was on a plane to Greece, headed back to the Temenos after 10 years away. I ate so much good food and drank so much good wine and saw incredible images and hung out with dear friends who don’t live in NY, spent quality time with NY friends who I don’t see often enough, and met so many amazing people. On my way out of Europe, I rolled through Bologna to see some beautiful films and film-lovers.

I reunited with the beaches of New York City and my soul was (in those moments) at peace.

With Flo and Dan, I helped put together a new NYFF program of Revivals that I was deeply proud of and then was able to share the films with so many wonderful friends that came to town for the festival.

I shot the shit with Paul Schrader for an hour for a NYFF Talk. He complimented my boots and laughed at my jokes and it was perfect.

I watched the Guardians win many games despite no one expecting them to. In particular, I will always remember the final game of the Wild Card series on October 8th, which saw me starting the game in Ridgewood and ending it sitting outside of Lincoln Center next to Dorota and Sofia screaming as we finally got a run in the 15th inning.

We all said goodbye to Jean-Luc Godard and Jean-Marie Straub…. Their passing continues to haunt me and to call into question how we make films, how we love films, and how we live as artists in the world. Also.... cigars <3

Related: I saw an insane amount of great movies! WOW! The programs that were nearest and dearest to me: Imageless Films @ Anthology, Victorin-Hippolyte Jasset @ Il Cinema Ritrovato, NYC’s Movie Renaissance @ Film Forum, Robert Downey @ Anthology, William Klein @ Anthology, Hugo Fregonese @ Il Cinema Ritrovato + MoMA, George Miller @ Anthology, Friedl Kubelka vom Gröller @ Anthology, Kinuyo Tanaka @ FilmLinc, Owen’s programs @ The Roxy + FilmLinc, Essential Cinema @ Anthology, Beth B & Scott B @ MoMA, + Everything @ Light Industry. + a special shout-out to Bradley Eros’s MAYA + COLOUR THEORY.

I took in the written word in a more piecemeal kind of way this year but the books I did actually finish have stuck with me: Sylvia by Leonard Michaels, Happy All the Time by Laurie Colwin, Airships by Barry Hannah, What I Loved by Siri Hustvedt, The Other Emily by Dean Koontz, John Huston by Lillian Ross, & The American Cinematographer issue devoted to Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

Listening to Harold Budd, Cocteau Twins, Chihei Hatakeyama, Fred Again, Fleetwood Mac, Sinead O’Connor, Cleveland Orchestra, David Bowie, Mitsuko Uchida, Burial, Hercules & Love Affair, Blink 182, Lana Del Ray, Billie Eilish, Joan Baez, Smashing Pumpkins, and more got me through many a day.

I shared so many wonderful meals with wonderful people

I’m thankful to have seen shows featuring the work of Antonio Lopez, William Eggleston, Sharon Lockhart, Wolfgang Tillmans, and more + The American Folk Art Museum’s incredible MULTITUDES show.

I spent a bunch of time with a happy dog named Buddy and a beautiful fatty named Moonshine

I struggled with how to use social media and not go insane. In turn I started this tumblr LOL.

The past three years have, for me, functioned like a snow globe… In March of 2020 everything was uprooted, shaken up, and ever since has, ever-so-slowly, been finding its way back to the ground. If the pieces have finally landed, which it seems they mostly have, everything is still there but nothing is in the same place. It remains disorienting and at times, tbh, kind of like an unending hangover. I did a lot this year, but years are long and in-between the memorable moments above was a tremendous amount of uncertainty and anxiety. I continue to oscillate between excitement at the change and the possibility therein, sadness at the change and all that has been lost, and massive fear of the change, especially in the context of our world. It’s a motley mix that makes for strange times and I’m sure even stranger ones ahead.

But there are a lot of us on this godforsaken journey and even if I’m walking down the street crying, which I often am, I’m so deeply thankful for all the amazing people in my shit show of a life.  

Come and get me 2023!

[bobbie-robron]

Classic ED - 2003 Debuts, Departures & Robert Sugden Monthly Appearance Counts

Classic ED is expected to begin airing 2003 episodes during the 1st full week of Dec-2022. Below are key character arrivals and departures. Also included now are the monthly episode counts for Robert (October apparently is a BIG month for him!).

Arrivals:

24-Jan-2003 - Jean Tate (Megan Pearson)

16-Feb-2003 - Dawn Woods (Julia Mallam)

17-Feb-2003 - Jean Hope (Julie Higginson)

10-Mar-2003 - Alastair Marsden (Danny Tennant), Elaine Marsden (Samantha McCarthy), Frances Marsden (Sandy Walsh), Paul Marsden (Matthew Booth), Ronnie Marsden (Ray Ashcroft), Siobhan Marsden (Abigail Fisher)

07-Jul-2003 - Shelly Williams (Carolyn Pickles)

30-Jul-2003 - Pearl Ladderbanks (Meg Johnson)

09-Oct-2003 - Darren ‘Daz’ Eden (Luke Tittensor)

19-Oct-2003 - TJ Woods (Connor Lee)

20-Nov-2003 - Simon Meredith (Dale Meeks)

17-Dec-2003 - Ethan Blake (Liam O’Brien)

24-Dec-2003 - Aaron Livesy (played by Danny Webb for 19 episodes through 2006)

Departures:

16-Apr-2003 - Jerry ‘Mack’ Mackinley

17-Sep-2003 - Chris Tate (killed off)

01-Oct-2003 - Ollie Reynolds

03-Dec-2003 - Ronnie Marsden

17-Dec-2003 - Alastair Marsden, Elaine Marsden, Frances Marsden

Robert Sugden Total Appearances: 121 (12th overall in episode count)

January 7, February 1, March 3

April 10, May 13, June 11

July 13, August 12, September 11

October 22, November 11, December 7

Previous arrivals and departures by year:

2002, 2001, 2000, 1999

[brookston]

Holidays 11.4

Holidays

Air-Conditioned Automobile Day

Bad Mood Day

Chair Day

Chicken Lady Day

Citizenship Day (Northern Mariana Islands)

Community Service Day (Dominica)

Day of Love (Egypt)

Flag Day (Panama)

Giorno dell’Unita Nazionale e Festa delle Forze Armate and Victory Day (Italy)

Honeymoon Day

International Cake Day

King Tut Day

Medical Science Liaison Awareness and Appreciation Day

Mischief Night (UK, Australia, NZ)

National Advent Calendar Day

National Easy-Bake Oven Day

National Professional Paint Contractors Day

National Skeptics Day

National Tonga Day (Tonga)

National Unity and Armed Forces Day (Italy)

Thanksgiving Day (Liberia)

Unity Day (Russia)

Use Your Common Sense Day

Victory Day (Italy)

Waiting for the Barbarians Day

Will Rogers Day (Oklahoma)

Yitzhak Rabin Memorial Day

Food & Drink Celebrations

National Candy Day

1st Friday in November

Fountain Pen Day [1st Friday]

J-Day (@ 8:59 PM, Tuborg releases Julebryg; Denmark) [1st Friday]

Love Your Lawyer Day [1st Friday]

National Jersey Friday [1st Friday]

National Medical Science Liaison Awareness and Appreciation Day [1st Friday]

World Community Day [1st Friday]

Feast Days

Americus (Christian; Saint) [America]

Boccaccio Day (Church of the SubGenius; Saint)

Brinstan (Christian; Saint)

Charles Borromeo (Roman Catholic Church)

Emeric of Hungary (Christian; Saint)

Feast of Qudrat (Power; Baha'i)

Federico Pelini (Muppetism)

Felix of Valois (Christian; Saint)

Hume (Positivist; Saint)

Joannicius the Great (Christian; Saint)

Listen to Sea Shanties and Dance Like a Pirate Day (Pastafarian)

Ludi Plebii begins (a.k.a. Plebian Games until 17th; Ancient Rome)

Not the Zombie Apocalypse Day (Pastafarian)

Our Lady of Kazan (Russian Orthodox Church)

Pierius (Christian; Saint)

Sigd (ends at Sundown) [Hebrew, Cheshvan 29]

Teresa Manganiello (Christian; Blessed)

Vitalis and Agricola (Christian; Saint)

Lucky & Unlucky Days

Taian (大安 Japan) [Lucky all day.]

Premieres

Chicken Little (Animated Film; 2005)

The Crown (TV Series; 2016)

Doctor Strange (Film; 2016)

The Fifth Elephant, by Terry Pratchet (Novel; 1999) [Discworld #24]

The Flash (Film; 2022)

G.I. Blues (Film; 1960) [Elvis Presley #5]

Great Performances (TV Anthology Series; 1972)

Hacksaw Ridge (Film; 2016)

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (Film; 2001) [#1]

The Interpretation of Dreams, by Sigmund Freud (Book; 1899)

The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair (Novel; 1905)

The Last Waltz (Concert Film; 1977)

The Man Who Sold the World, by David Bowie (Album; 1970)

Rocket to Russia, by the Ramones (Album; 1977)

Symphony No. 1 in C, by Johannes Brahms (Symphony; 1876)

A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas (Film; 2011)

Walking on the Moon, by Police (Song; 1979)

Weird: The Al Yankoic Story (Film; 2022)

Today’s Name Days

Karl (Austria)

Drago, Dragutin, Karlo (Croatia)

Karel (Czech Republic)

Otto (Denmark)

Erla, Erle, Herta (Estonia)

Hertta (Finland)

Aymeric, Charles, Jessé (France)

Charles, Karl, Karla, Modesta (Germany)

Károly (Hungary)

Carlo, Guido, Rosalia (Italy)

Atis, Oto, Otomārs (Latvia)

Eibartas, Karolis, Vaidmina (Lithuania)

Ottar, Otto (Norway)

Emeryk, Karol Boromeusz, Mściwój, Olgierd, Witalis (Poland)

Karol (Slovakia)

Amancio, Carlos (Spain)

Nore, Sverker (Sweden)

Amory, Cara, Carl, Carla, Carley, Carlie, Carlo, Carlos, Carly, Carol, Carolina, Caroline, Carolyn, Carrie, Carroll Charles, Charlie, Chaz Chuck, Emery, Karl, Karla, Karlee, Karli, Karly (USA)

Today is Also…

Day of Year: Day 308 of 2022; 57 days remaining in the year

ISO: Day 5 of week 44 of 2022

Celtic Tree Calendar: Hagal (Constraint) [Day 7 of 28]

Chinese: Month 10 (Lùyuè), Day 11 (Xin-You)

Chinese Year of the: Tiger (until January 22, 2023)

Hebrew: 10 Cheshvan 5783

Islamic: 9 Rabi II 1444

J Cal: 8 Mir; Sunday [8 of 30]

Julian: 22 October 2022

Moon: 86%: Waxing Gibbous

Positivist: 28 Descartes (11th Month) [Hume]

Runic Half Month: Ngetal (Reed) [Day 10 of 15]

Season: Autumn (Day 43 of 90)

Zodiac: Scorpio (Day 13 of 31)

[dankusner]

Gregory Antollino —  March 28, 2022

Re: Instagram photo by Gregory Antollino • Mar 25, 2022 at 8:24 PM

Links

Instagram instagram.com/Marcellit0

Twitter twitter.com/civilrightslwyr

Photography gregshots.com

Legal services antollino.com

Judge Scolds Atty For 'Hostile' Court Messages, Limits Access

A New York federal magistrate judge admonished a solo practitioner for sending multiple emails and leaving a voicemail with the court that were "disrespectful, hostile, and largely unrelated to the substance of" a case by a group of health workers accusing a staffing company of profiteering from the COVID-19 pandemic and putting them at needless risk.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Ona T. Wang did not identify the plaintiffs' lawyer in her order on Monday. 

But the attorney is Gregory Antollino, who fired back in a filing Tuesday morning, arguing that Judge Wang's order limiting his contact with the court "attacks me publicly" and did not "allow me to respond in kind."

Antollino, who's representing a group of nurses or nurse practitioners who brought the underlying case in April 2020 against Krucial Staffing LLC and its CEO, also asked the judge for permission to file a two-page letter in which the attorney plans to ask for Judge Wang's recusal.

He said the jurist's characterization of his communications to the court was done "in an ad hominem manner" that "not only violated your rules but showed an appearance of impropriety."

By Khorri Atkinson ·

November 23, 2021, 4:34 PM EST

A New York federal magistrate judge admonished a solo practitioner for sending multiple emails and leaving a voicemail with the court that were "disrespectful, hostile, and largely unrelated to the substance…

a case by a group of health workers accusing a staffing compan

Allen et al v. Krucial Staffing, LLC et al

Case Number: 1:20-cv-02859

Crises nurses for-temporary-hire join battle on coronavirus front lines Published July 23, 2020 EDINBURG, Texas — Visiting nurse Gabriel Leyva, 34, second from left, of Downey helps treat a COVID-19 patient in Edinburg, Texas, where hospitalizations and deaths have spiked this month. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

Crisis nurse Catrina Rugar was in full protective gear, checking a ventilated patient at a new COVID-19 unit in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley, when a doctor stopped to ask how old the man was: 40.

“They keep getting younger,” Rugar said.

Doctor and nurse bemoaned how people in Florida and Texas were ignoring pandemic restrictions.

“No one’s seeing us drown in patients,” Rugar said.

Rugar is part of an army of thousands of nurses and other medical staff, including some from Southern California, who were deployed first to New York City at the start of the pandemic, then to south Texas this month to battle the virus.

Contracted by staffing agencies that set up temporary offices in Rio Grande Valley hotels, registered nurses are paid $95 an hour ($142 an hour for overtime) plus travel expenses to work 12-hour shifts, seven days a week for months at a time (nurse practitioner jobs pay more).

“You thought NYC was the biggest activation in American history with 4,500 medical professionals? So did we,” the Krucial Staffing agency said in a job posting on Facebook last week seeking nurses and other medical staff. “Our operations have moved to the great state of Texas. We are on track to eclipse that number.”

Catrina Rugar, 34, a traveling nurse from Florida, responded first to hospitals in New York, then Texas’ Rio Grande Valley, where she was treating COVID-19 patients in Edinburg last week. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

A lawsuit filed by seven former Krucial nurses in New York this spring alleges they were forced to work without sufficient protective equipment and to perform work beyond their scope of training, putting them and their patients in danger.

When they complained, they said they were fired.

“Based on information from many former Krucial nurses — not just my clients — Krucial’s practices risk people’s lives by sending in unqualified nurses who are attracted to the high pay,” said Gregory Antollino, a New York-based attorney representing the nurses in their lawsuit.

Krucial Staffing, based in Overland Park, Kan., released a statement Friday saying it “vehemently denies the claims asserted in that lawsuit. We fully intend to defend our company from these false allegations.”

Rugar, who worked for Krucial at the 530-bed DHR Health in Edinburg, said the hospital was better prepared than those she staffed early in the pandemic in Harlem and the Bronx.

But the Texas facility was still in crisis, she said, forced to cope with shortages of equipment and personnel amid a seemingly endless stream of critically ill patients.

One of the women on a ventilator she cared for last week had already lost her husband to COVID-19.

This week charter buses and vans ferried nurses from valley hospitals to hotels, where staff placed “Healthcare heroes” signs on their doors, thank-you banners in lobbies and ear plugs at the front desks for those on the night shift. At morning and evening shift change, nurses in scrubs and pink respirator masks arrived in groups. Some asked hotel staff for trash bags to carry their soiled scrubs; others for deliveries. Some had ordered protective equipment such as gas masks in advance, unsure what conditions they would face in COVID units.

Hotel halls were lined with their clogs and sneakers, which they left outside to avoid contaminating their rooms.

Traveling nurses staying at hotels around McAllen, Texas, take buses to local hospital to work in the COVID-19 units. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

“We just have to try our best,” said Rugar, 34, who has worked as an emergency room nurse for a decade. “We’re making progress.”

Rugar, who lives in Crystal River, Fla., said she was skeptical about the pandemic when she arrived in New York, but quickly realized the severity of the risk and was “a changed person” when she left 39 days later.

She gets frustrated when she sees people refusing to wear face coverings and practice social distancing or calling the pandemic a hoax.

Her husband and brother are nursing assistants temporarily assigned to a different south Texas hospital.

But Rugar said even her Cuban American family back in Florida had their doubts.

“There’s people saying, ‘Oh, the media’s lying. The numbers are fake.’ There’s a lack of trust,” she said, until people get infected. “Then they want all the help they can get.”

She planned to return to Florida this week with her husband and brother to quarantine for two weeks, then continue working at COVID units there.

Working with Rugar on the COVID-19 team in Texas was contract nurse Gabriel Leyva.

When the pandemic began, Leyva, 34, a single father raising a 7-year-old, was only a few months out of nursing school at Cerritos College, working at Rancho Los Amigos National Rehabilitation Center in his native Downey.

“I didn’t know what I was getting into,” he said.

Nurses Catrina Rugar, Hannah Woodward and Veronica Gomez treat a COVID-19 patient in Edinburg, Texas. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

He said his parents worried about his safety when he left for a six-week assignment in New York.

“One of the things my dad asked me was, ‘What assets do you have set aside for your daughter if you die?’” he said.

But Leyva said he’s learned how to safely work as part of ever-evolving teams to treat the coronavirus.

“It’s nurses from all over the nation coming together to overcome this virus,” he said. “You learn to adapt quick. It’s something I’m learning with each deployment.”

One of his friends from nursing school is also deployed in Texas, Jaime Zamora, 30, of Santa Fe Springs.

Zamora had just graduated in February when the pandemic started, and he said he went straight to New York because “I wanted to find a way to help.”

In New York, he worked the day shift on a psychiatric medical unit full of COVID-19 patients at Bellevue Hospital.

Leyva worked night shift.

In the evenings at shift change, their spirits lifted when residents of an adjacent apartment building would open their windows and clap.

That doesn’t happen in Texas, and after three weeks Zamora said he often feels drained, emotionally and physically.

He’s seeing more people infecting their loved ones.

“I’m constantly arranging FaceTime calls with entire families. I’ve seen many brothers and sisters crying. It’s a family disease,” he said.

A nursing job’s waiting for Zamora at Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center. But he plans to stay in Texas for at least another week, maybe two.

“That’s what I became a nurse for: to help,” he said. “I’m working every single day until it’s time to go home.”

Greg S. Antollino

Frank E. Antollino Obituary

Frank Antollino, 80, of Branford, CT passed away peacefully while surrounded by loved ones on Friday, September 8, 2023 after a valiant battle against a long illness. Born in New Haven, he was the son of the late Ernest & Rose Antollino. He grew up in the Cove area of New Haven, attending Nathan Hale School and eventually Notre Dame High School prior to the family moving to Branford. He spent time working for his father Ernest and his many uncles at their Golden Crest Ice Cream plant during his high school and college summers. He attended Providence College and then onto Suffolk Law School in Boston. Upon graduation, Frank was initially a prosecutor in New Haven for a short time until he and his late law partner of 50 years, Charles “Chuck” Angelo, opened their private practice together. He was a well-known attorney in the greater New Haven area, well respected, and sought after by many. He worked as an attorney up until he became ill as the law was one of his joys in life, along with making and eating authentic Italian food like his mother Rose made, enjoying his wife Charlene’s expert home cooking, and taking past trips to NYC and Newport, RI with her. He was also an avid NY Giants fan, but also looked forward to watching most football games. Holiday celebrations will always be remembered and cherished as a time to spend with family and to enjoy delicious food together. He was predeceased by his parents and his two beloved sons, Christopher and Gregory “Scott” Antollino.

He is survived by his loving wife of 40 years, Charlene Antollino of Branford, his daughter, Robin Antollino-Bukoski of Worcester, MA, his sister, Roberta Antollino of Branford, and his three grandchildren, Ryan, Dylan, and Jillian Bukoski. He also leaves behind two stepsons Scott (Danielle) Craig of Wallingford, CT and Damon (Amy) Golia of Mathis, Texas along with his bonus granddaughters Alyssa, Briana and Caitlyn.

We would like to thank the very special nurses who took extra good care of Frank on the 7-5 Unit at Yale New Haven Hospital.

A memorial service will be held at the W. S. Clancy Memorial Funeral Home, 244 North Main Street, Branford on Thursday, September 14th with 5-7pm calling hours and at 7pm will be a Celebration of Life.

In lieu of flowers ,, it would be appreciated that memorial donations may be made to a charity of your choice. 

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has sued the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, and other officials in the Biden Administration to stop an unlawful attempt to redefine federal law through agency guidance.

This lawsuit is Attorney General Paxton’s 75th legal action against the Biden Administration.

On April 29, the EEOC issued guidance that would redefine the meaning of “sex” in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to require employer accommodations for bathroom usage, dress code compliance, and pronoun usage in the workplace based on “gender identity” rather than biological sex.

However, doing so directly flouts a prior ruling Texas won stopping a substantially similar guidance issued by the EEOC in 2022.

According to that ruling, the agency lacked any authority to mandate a reinterpretation of the law and the court vacated the guidance in its entirety.

The court also issued a binding declaratory judgment between Texas and EEOC that Title VII did not require employer accommodations for bathroom usage, dress code compliance, and pronoun usage to be according to “gender identity” rather than biological sex — which the Biden Administration did not even appeal.

The renewed attempt by the Biden Administration to remake Title VII through agency action contradicts the previous ruling and is clearly unlawful.

Attorney General Paxton has asked the court to enforce its declaratory judgment, vacate the illegal guidance from April 29, and grant injunctive relief preventing the Biden Administration from issuing further guidance and other resources that are “contrary to law.”

“Yet again the Biden Administration is trying to circumvent the democratic process by issuing sweeping mandates from the desks of bureaucrats that would fundamentally reshape American law,” said Attorney General Paxton. “Texas will not stand by while Biden ignores court orders forbidding such actions and will we hold the federal government accountable at every turn.”

Re: Instagram photo by Gregory Antollino • Mar 25, 2022 at 8:24 PM https://www.passengersjournal.com/volume-2-issue-6-visual-art

A note from the artist:

This is an image I took of Sylvia Rivera at the corner of 12th Street and Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, Gay Pride 1993. She was a Stonewall Survivor and wore her banner with pride. Her outfit is completely together for a blinging hot day.

What’s going on in her mind?

Is it just an unflattering picture that makes Sylvia seem confused? (Please forgive the photographer; Pride is busy, even a kilometer from Christopher Street. The sun was not in my favor.)

Nevertheless, suspending disbelief and judging from her gaze, which I shot from a lower angle, I see fear; I see rage; I see a person unaccepted not only by society, but the bougie onlookers who had no idea what she had done for the Queer Struggle.

I thank Passenger’s Journal for taking this, even the scan of a photo – one I probably printed at CVS – which was not quite right: too dark and overexposed. I found the negative just a month ago, having forgotten that I had submitted this. Then I misplaced the negative, along with another important shot, the one that leads all of the photos on my hobbyist website. Then, Manolo Salas, an editor with Tony Vaccaro Studio, rescanned the negative and let in light. I didn’t know of Sylvia Rivera in 1993, and only realized I had taken this shot, after rewatching “The Death and Life of Marsh P. Johnson,” by David France. Sylvia’s struggle, in my opinion, is the thematic heart of that story. Then I just happened to be looking though albums and there she was.

It's been a tough couple of years for us all. We were already trapped by the pandemic. Because we couldn’t travel, it made me feel doubly secluded. I’m by nature an explorer always looking for something new to record. In life, I am (mostly) satisfied practicing law, but during the worst of the pandemic I needed to retravel to places I had been and, in doing so, I regained some optimism.

In Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia, No. 17-1618 (S. Ct. June 15, 2020),[1] the Supreme Court held that firing individuals because of their sexual orientation or transgender status violates Title VII’s prohibition on discrimination because of sex.

The Court reached its holding by focusing on the plain text of Title VII.

As the Court explained, “discrimination based on homosexuality or transgender status necessarily entails discrimination based on sex; the first cannot happen without the second.”

For example, if an employer fires an employee because she is a woman who is married to a woman, but would not do the same to a man married to a woman, the employer is taking an action because of the employee’s sex because the action would not have taken place but for the employee being a woman.

Similarly, if an employer fires an employee because that person was identified as male at birth but uses feminine pronouns and identifies as a female, the employer is taking action against the individual because of sex since the action would not have been taken but for the fact the employee was originally identified as male.

The Court also noted that its decision did not address various religious liberty issues, such as the First Amendment, Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and exemptions Title VII provides for religious employers

[mcgiggers]

New York - May 2024

Just back from action-packed Frieze art week festivities in the Big Apple which featured stops at Future Fair, Nada New York and Frieze New York. The art fair spree dovetailed nicely with the launch of the major post-war, contemporary, and modern auction previews scheduled for later this month at Sotheby’s, Christie’s and Phillips. The fairs and auction previews together served up fantastic art viewing opportunities for art fans and aficionados alike. And, as if that wasn’t enough given the mere 24 hours of viewing time on hand, serendipity delivered the icing on the cake with the timely opening of Tammi Campbell’s marvelous gallery exhibit of recent paintings and sculptures.

The Fairs

Frieze New York was the marquee fair, and it celebrated its 12th year as part of the cultural landscape in the city and its fourth outing at The Shed since relocating from Randall Island. The evolution of the fair since then has been considerable. From a corporate perspective, it is now part of famed Ari Emanuel’s sports and entertainment conglomerate, and, on the art front, the offering got slicker and more rarefied, featuring top-tier highly curated contemporary galleries and works. This year’s boutique-sized edition of 65 or so exhibitors included global mega galleries and international and local blue chippers. Standout works included: Nate Lowman’s “Golf Course Marilyn”, 2024, oil and alkyd on linen (50 x 30 in.); Uri Aran’s “Everything (Timeline)”, 2023, gesso, acrylic, oil, oil pastel, graphite, wood stain, clear polyurethane, charcoal, color pencil, china marker, and mixed media on canvas (87.25 x 42 x 1.5 in.); and, Richard Aldrich’s “Untitled”, 2022, oil and wax on panel (20.5 x 13.13 in.).

NADA New York has long been synonymous with contemporary and emerging art, and the fair continued to build on its reputation as being the go-to event for up-and-coming galleries. For this year’s edition, over 92 galleries, art spaces and non-profit organizations convened in the heart of Chelsea to showcase their stars, including, remarkably, 34 first time presenters. The show highlights included: a pair of works by Shaan Syed “Gorilla, Geurilla” and “To, Too, Two”, 2023, oil and paper collage on linen (35.3 x 31.5 in., each); Emma Schwartz’s “Thought You Should Know (again)”, 2024, oil, charcoal and chalk pastel on canvas (68 x 48 in.); and, Jule Korneffel’s “Alex’s Garden”, 2023, acrylic on canvas (82 x 80 in.).

Future Fair, on a relative basis, was the newest kid on the block, yet the four-year old upstart exuded a palpable vibe and excitement. With a focus on emerging galleries, the contemporary art fair featured over 100 artists from 26 countries, collaborating with over 60 local and international art dealers. Collectively creating a very accessible environment, the artists, works, and gallerists fostered a strong sense of engagement with fairgoers. Highlights included: Gwen Hardie’s assembled triptych “05.29.23”, pure venetian red and naples yellow on indian red, “09.15.23”, darkest cadmium red on indian red and “06.19.23”, lavender on warm umber (24 x 24 in., each); Beck Lowry’s “Red Threat (after Aseem)”, 2023, painted weaving on handmade wooden armature (plywood, crochet thread, oil paint) (12.5 x .75 x 1 in.); and Carolyn Case’s “Night Kitchen”, 2024, chalk pastel on pastel card with artist frame, ceramic porcelain and glaze (17 x 20 in.).

The Auction Previews

The previews for the prominent spring edition of the post-war, contemporary, and modern art auctions at Sotheby’s, Christie’s and Phillips opened to the public and welcomed everyone from the most serious global big hitters gearing up to shell out whatever it takes to walk home with a masterwork to casual and ardent fans savoring the opportunity to look at phenomenal works before they again disappear into private collections. As always, the previews were masterfully staged in wonderful spaces. Supersized showstoppers included: Andy Warhol’s “Flowers”, 1964, acrylic, fluorescent paint and silkscreen ink on linen (82 x 82 in.); Frank Stella’s “Lettre sur les sourds et muets II”, 1974, synthetic polymer paint on canvas (140.88 x 140.88 in.); Felix Gonzalez-Torres’ “(Untitled) America #3”, 1992, 42 light bulbs, porcelain light sockets and electrical cord (length 504 in.); and, Rashid Johnson’s “Anxious Red Painting September 24th”, 2020, oil on linen (72.25 x 96.25 in.). Beyond the headliners, marvelous less conspicuous works were sprinkled throughout. Memorable ones included: Brice Marden’s “Small Parchment Study #1”, 1999, oil on natural vellum stretched over plywood; Henry Taylor’s “Cruel Kids”, 2005, acrylic on canvas (28.5 x 28 in.); and Agnes Martin’s “Earth II”, 1959, oil on canvas (71.33 x 48 in.).

Tammi Campbell Exhibit

In between fairs and auction previews, Tammi Campbell’s As Long As It Lasts exhibit kicked off and featured a walk through with the artist who provided fascinating insights into her practice and the specifics about works on view. With the continuous evolution of her creative re-engineering processes and next gen wrappings, Campbell continued to push appropriation to new heights, all while making the work uniquely her own. Highlights included: the Cy Twombly inspired “Untitled (1970)”, 2024, chalk on blackboard with walnut frame (48.75 x 59.25 x 1.4 in.); and a replica of a famous Andy Warhol work with a twist “Double Elvis (Ferus Type) with Bubble Wrap and Packing Tape”, 2024, acrylic on canvas (81.25 x 58.25 x 1.25 in.).

As spirited art week festivities unfolded across the city, local sportsfans were also whipped up into a frenzy as both their hometown Rangers and Knicks advanced to the second round of their respective playoff series. On the hoops front, with the Knicks now set to tip off against the Pacers, Dino fans can also partake in some playoff excitement (by extension) as former Raptor stars Pascal Siakam and OG Anunoby, sporting Pacers and Knicks uniforms, respectively, are pitted against each other. The exuberance of “Crazy Eyes” versus the zen of “OG-Won Kenobe” - one of the two will get to the conference finals which should provide some solace and maybe even bring a smile to Dino nation.

For more information on any of the artists or works mentioned, the upcoming auctions, and the fate of former Dino stars, “Just Google It”.

There you have it sportsfans,

MC Giggers

(https://mcgiggers.tumblr.com) Reporter’s Certification

I, MC Giggers, hereby certify that the views expressed in this report accurately reflect my personal views and that no part of my compensation was or will be, directly or indirectly, related to the specific views expressed herein.

I also certify that I may or may not own, directly or indirectly, works of artists mentioned in this report and that I may or may not have a strong bias for such artists and, more generally, for “Pictures of Nothing”.

[spacenutspod]

28 Min Read The Marshall Star for January 17, 2024 ‘Be King’: Team Redstone Invites All to Honor Civil Rights Icon’s Legacy By Jessica Barnett Several accomplished speakers took to the stage Jan. 11 at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center to share how Martin Luther King Jr.’s life and legacy helped shape their lives. The event was hosted by Marshall’s ODEO (Office of Diversity and Equal Opportunity), along with the FBI and U.S. Army, in the center’s Activities Building 4316 as a way of honoring King, a minister and activist from Atlanta who rose to national prominence as a key figure in the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. King would have been 95 on Jan. 15. Several guest speakers took to the stage Jan. 11 at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center to share how Martin Luther King Jr.’s life and legacy impacted them personally, as well as how others can continue his legacy by being like King today. Pictured here, from left, are Tora Henry, director of Marshall’s Office of Diversity and Equal Opportunity; Kenny Anderson, director of Huntsville City’s Office of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion; Jacquelyn Gates Shipe, CEO of Global Ties Alabama; Darell Ezell, social scientist, professor, administrator, and corporate strategist; Bryan Samuel, vice president of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion at the University of Alabama in Huntsville; and Larry Leopard, associate center director, technical, at Marshall. NASA/Alex Russell Marshall ODEO Deputy Director Carolyn Magsby and Associate Center Director-Technical Larry Leopard kicked off the event before welcoming Kenny Anderson, Huntsville City’s director of the Office of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion. Though the theme for the event was “It Starts with Me,” Anderson helped set the tone by encouraging everyone to honor King by “being King” and choosing peace, compassion, and education over violence, criticism, and ignorance. Following Anderson’s remarks, Bill Marks, who serves as deputy director of Marshall’s Office of Center Operations, moderated a panel featuring Darrell Ezell, a social scientist, administrator, professor, and corporate strategist; Jacquelyn Gates Shipe, CEO of Global Ties Alabama; and Bryan Samuel, vice president of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion at the University of Alabama at Huntsville. Kenny Anderson, director of Huntsville City’s Office of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, speaks about Martin Luther King Jr. during an Jan. 11 event honoring King’s life and legacy ahead of what would have been the civil rights icon’s 95th birthday. Joining Anderson on stage are, from left, Global Ties CEO Jacquelyn Gates Shipe; social scientist and professor Darell Ezell; and Bryan Samuel, vice president of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion at the University of Alabama in Huntsville.NASA/Alex Russell The panelists each shared King’s impact on their personal lives, from school desegregation to interactions with foreign visitors to how they work to highlight and overcome injustice in their community. They also discussed the impacts of social media, cross-cultural connections, and access to education on the injustices faced by minority communities. Marshall ODEO Director Tora Henry said she looks forward to the event inspiring courageous conversations throughout 2024. Barnett, a Media Fusion employee, supports the Marshall Office of Communications. › Back to Top National Mentor Month: Navigating Mentorship with Michoud’s Cynthia Spraul and Marie Allain By Celine Smith As a mentor at NASA’s MAF (Michoud Assembly Facility), Cynthia Spraul says her goal is the success of her mentee, Marie Allain. “It feels really good to pass on my experience to somebody who can get there faster and go beyond,” Spraul said. Mentor and Michoud Assembly Facility integrations lead Cynthia Spraul, left, smiles with mentee, Marie Allain, project coordinator, at a holiday party in 2022. NASA/Courtesy of Marie Allain For some, a mentorship may seem daunting. A mentee looking for a mentor in a new environment can find it difficult to find someone they trust to guide their career and personal growth. Meanwhile, mentors may feel discouraged, thinking they might not have enough knowledge to be in their role. Hoping their experience can help others during National Mentor Month, Spraul and Allain shared their insight about finding and starting a mentorship. Spraul worked for Lockheed Martin at Michoud on the Space Shuttle Program’s External Tank for 20 years. For the past 17 years, she has worked for NASA at Michoud, where she is currently the integrations lead. “I work on strategic site management, resource management, and contract management,” Spraul said. Allain graduated with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from LSU (Louisiana State University) in 2021. “I got involved with the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics at LSU, an aerospace professional society, which is how I really got into aerospace,” she said. Allain now works as a project coordinator on Spraul’s integrations team. She performs project management in the Michoud Directorate and contract administration along with Component Processing Facility management. Spraul was asked to coordinate the summer internship program at Michoud, which is how she got started as a mentor. Spraul was the program’s first mentor at MAF. So, when Allain approached her requesting mentorship, she gladly took her on. Question: What does mentorship mean to you? Spraul: Seeing someone’s interest in what you do, like Marie taking an interest in my past experience, reinvigorates my love for my job and my desire to work. Mentoring makes work fun for me again. I might be doing the same things, but since I’m teaching somebody while I’m doing it, I get to listen to myself when I talk. It makes me go, ‘Oh, wow, I really get to do this.’ I get excited about my work all over again. Allain: My mentor makes me feel like I’m starting my career with the insight a person at the peak of their career wishes they had when they started. This mentorship gives me an opportunity to start on the right foot. I get to start out with tools that will help me later down the line. It gives me the opportunity to glean a lot of insight from people who have been at Michoud for a long time. They know the history of the place firsthand. A lot of people in this office are getting near retirement, and before too long, we’re going to have a lot of information, a lot of our history, that’s lost. I get the opportunity to retain some of that history from somebody who experienced it firsthand. Question: What impact has mentorship had on you and your career? Spraul: Someone having an interest in what I’m doing is a catalyst for me and my own career growth. The more I get reinterested in what I’m doing, the more I ask myself, ‘What’s my next step and how do I get there?’ Especially because Allain’s watching me. It’s always better to perform when someone’s watching you. There’s a reason to do better and grow because young people are watching. I also tend to turn my focus on the coming generations, because they’re going to be here when I’m gone. Allain: Before going into this mentorship, I struggled visualizing what my career could look like. Especially coming right out of college, nobody knows what jobs actually exist. Spraul knows what our organization is and what exists in it, and what it’s like to work in different roles in the organization. The kind of insight she provided completely changed how I feel about my career. I have an actual vision of where I’m headed. Beforehand, I felt I was somewhat free floating in space. Question: How did you find and connect with your mentor/mentee? Spraul: After mentoring college interns over the years, I’m always excited when I learn something new from them. When Marie came to me requesting mentorship, she had already taught me so many things that I thought it was a great idea to expand our dialogue. Allain: It was natural for us.After the first few months of working together on projects, we would have lunch together. We’d spend some time together and talk. I started to realize she and I have a lot in common. Question: What steps did you take to approach your mentor/mentee to initiate the partnership? Allain: I started asking her for insight about her experience and her career. The mentorship relationship developed from there. It started with discussions during lunch and developed into conversations about everything from work stories to life experience. Spraul: Allain asked introspective questions that would lead us on a good tangent while we worked together as well. We also started staying after work so I could have longer conversations with Allain about a path for her future. Question: What advice do you have for someone else considering finding or being a mentor? Allain: For mentees, find somebody you look up to in your organization and just ask. Most potential mentors see it as a huge compliment. The worst thing that can happen is being told no. I think most people at NASA would say yes. Don’t feel like you’re putting somebody out by asking them to mentor you. Also, don’t sit around assuming mentors are going to come to you. Spraul: I would suggest that mentees observe other people above them. Mentees should watch how potential mentors conduct themselves to see who they would like to model themselves after. For mentors, a lot of work goes into being mentor. It’s more than showing up. Be prepared by knowing what you’re going to have your mentee do and try. Being a mentor does take some work, but you receive tenfold in your own career and the enjoyment of your day. Don’t be afraid is my best advice. Even showing up is valuable to the mentee. You’ll get results from anything else you put into it. Editor’s note: This is the first in a Marshall Star series during National Mentor Month in January. Marshall team members can learn more about the benefits of mentoring on Inside Marshall. Smith, a Media Fusion employee, supports the Marshall Office of Communications. › Back to Top NASA Shares Progress Toward Early Artemis Moon Missions with Crew NASA announced Jan. 9 updates to its Artemis campaign that will establish the foundation for long-term scientific exploration at the Moon, land the first woman and first person of color on the lunar surface, and prepare for human expeditions to Mars for the benefit of all. To safely carry out these missions, agency leaders are adjusting the schedules for Artemis II and Artemis III to allow teams to work through challenges associated with first-time developments, operations, and integration. NASA will now target September 2025 for Artemis II, the first crewed Artemis mission around the Moon, and September 2026 for Artemis III, which is planned to land the first astronauts near the lunar South Pole. Artemis IV, the first mission to the Gateway lunar space station, remains on track for 2028. From left, Artemis II crew members CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen, and NASA astronauts Christina Koch, Victor Glover, and Reid Wiseman walk out of Astronaut Crew Quarters inside the Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building to the Artemis crew transportation vehicles prior to traveling to Launch Pad 39B as part of an integrated ground systems test at Kennedy Space Center on Sept. 20, to test the crew timeline for launch day.NASA “We are returning to the Moon in a way we never have before, and the safety of our astronauts is NASA’s top priority as we prepare for future Artemis missions,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “We’ve learned a lot since Artemis I, and the success of these early missions relies on our commercial and international partnerships to further our reach and understanding of humanity’s place in our solar system. Artemis represents what we can accomplish as a nation – and as a global coalition. When we set our sights on what is hard, together, we can achieve what is great.” Ensuring crew safety is the primary driver for the Artemis II schedule changes. As the first Artemis flight test with crew aboard the Orion spacecraft, the mission will test critical environmental control and life support systems required to support astronauts. NASA’s testing to qualify components to keep the crew safe and ensure mission success has uncovered issues that require additional time to resolve. Teams are troubleshooting a battery issue and addressing challenges with a circuitry component responsible for air ventilation and temperature control. NASA’s investigation into unexpected loss of char layer pieces from the spacecraft’s heat shield during Artemis I is expected to conclude this spring. Teams have taken a methodical approach to understand the issue, including extensive sampling of the heat shield, testing, and review of data from sensors and imagery. The new timeline for Artemis III aligns with the updated schedule for Artemis II, ensures the agency can incorporate lessons learned from Artemis II into the next mission, and acknowledges development challenges experienced by NASA’s industry partners. As each crewed Artemis mission increases complexity and adds flight tests for new systems, the adjusted schedule will give the providers developing new capabilities – SpaceX for the HLS (human landing system) and Axiom Space for the next-generation spacesuits – additional time for testing and any refinements ahead of the mission. “We are letting the hardware talk to us so that crew safety drives our decision-making. We will use the Artemis II flight test, and each flight that follows, to reduce risk for future Moon missions,” said Catherine Koerner, associate administrator, Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters. “We are resolving challenges associated with first-time capabilities and operations, and we are closer than ever to establishing sustained exploration of Earth’s nearest neighbor under Artemis.” In addition to the schedule updates for Artemis II and III, NASA is reviewing the schedule for launching the first integrated elements of Gateway, previously planned for October 2025, to provide additional development time and better align that launch with the Artemis IV mission in 2028. NASA also shared that it has asked both Artemis human landing system providers – SpaceX and Blue Origin – to begin applying knowledge gained in developing their systems as part of their existing contracts toward future variations to potentially deliver large cargo on later missions. “Artemis is a long-term exploration campaign to conduct science at the Moon with astronauts and prepare for future human missions to Mars. That means we must get it right as we develop and fly our foundational systems so that we can safely carry out these missions,” said Amit Kshatriya, deputy associate administrator of Exploration Systems Development, and manager of NASA’s Moon to Mars Program Office at headquarters. “Crew safety is and will remain our number one priority.” NASA leaders emphasized the importance of all partners delivering on time so the agency can maximize the flight objectives with available hardware on a given mission. NASA regularly assesses progress and timelines and as a part of integrated programmatic planning to ensure the agency and its partners can successfully accomplish its Moon to Mars exploration goals. With Artemis, NASA will explore more of the Moon than ever before, learn how to live and work away from home, and prepare for future human exploration of the Red Planet. NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) rocket, exploration ground systems, and Orion spacecraft, along with the human landing system, next-generation spacesuits, Gateway lunar space station, and future rovers are NASA’s foundation for deep space exploration. NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center manages the SLS and HLS programs. NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility, which is managed by Marshall, manufactures several Artemis components, including the SLS core stage. › Back to Top IXPE Helps Researchers Maximize ‘Microquasar’ Findings By Rick Smith The powerful gravity fields of black holes can devour whole planets’ worth of matter – often so violently that they expel streams of particles traveling near the speed of light in formations known as jets. Scientists understand that these high-speed jets can accelerate these particles, called cosmic rays, but little is definitively known about that process. Recent findings by researchers using data from NASA’s IXPE (Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer) spacecraft give scientists new clues as to how particle acceleration happens in this extreme environment. The observations came from a “microquasar,” a system comprised of a black hole siphoning off material from a companion star. This composite image of the Manatee Nebula captures the jet emanating from SS 433, a black hole devouring material embedded in the supernova remnant which spawned it. Radio emissions from the remnant are blue-green, whereas X-rays combined from IXPE, XMM-Newton, and Chandra are highlighted in bright blue-purple and pinkish-white  against a backdrop of infrared data in red. The black hole emits twin jets of matter traveling in opposite directions at nearly the speed of light, distorting the remnant’s shape. The jets become bright about 100 light years away from the black hole, where particles are accelerated to very high energies by shocks within the jet. The IXPE data shows that the magnetic field, which plays a key role in how particles are accelerated, is aligned parallel to the jet – aiding our understanding of how astrophysical jets accelerate these particles to high energies.X-ray: (IXPE): NASA/MSFC/IXPE; (Chandra): NASA/CXC/SAO; (XMM): ESA/XMM-Newton; IR: NASA/JPL/Caltech/WISE; Radio: NRAO/AUI/NSF/VLA/B. Saxton. (IR/Radio image created with data from M. Goss, et al.); Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/N. Wolk & K.Arcand This composite image of the Manatee Nebula captures the jet emanating from SS 433, a black hole devouring material embedded in the supernova remnant which spawned it. Radio emissions from the remnant are blue-green, whereas X-rays combined from IXPE, XMM-Newton, and Chandra are highlighted in bright blue-purple and pinkish-white  against a backdrop of infrared data in red. The black hole emits twin jets of matter traveling in opposite directions at nearly the speed of light, distorting the remnant’s shape. The jets become bright about 100 light years away from the black hole, where particles are accelerated to very high energies by shocks within the jet. The IXPE data shows that the magnetic field, which plays a key role in how particles are accelerated, is aligned parallel to the jet – aiding our understanding of how astrophysical jets accelerate these particles to high energies.X-ray: (IXPE): NASA/MSFC/IXPE; (Chandra): NASA/CXC/SAO; (XMM): ESA/XMM-Newton; IR: NASA/JPL/Caltech/WISE; Radio: NRAO/AUI/NSF/VLA/B. Saxton. (IR/Radio image created with data from M. Goss, et al.); Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/N. Wolk & K.Arcand The microquasar in question – Stephenson and Sanduleak 433, or SS 433 – sits in the center of the supernova remnant W50 in the constellation Aquila, some 18,000 light-years from Earth. SS 433’s powerful jets, which distort the remnant’s shape and earned it the nickname the “Manatee Nebula,” have been clocked at roughly 26% of the speed of light, or more than 48,000 miles per second. Identified in the late 1970s, SS 433 is the first microquasar ever discovered. IXPE’s three onboard telescopes measure a special property of X-ray light called polarization, which tells scientists about the organization and alignment of electromagnetic waves at X-ray frequencies. X-ray polarization helps researchers understand the physical processes taking place within extreme regions of our universe – such as the environment around black holes – and how particles get accelerated in these regions. IXPE spent 18 days in April and May of 2023 studying one such acceleration site in the eastern lobe of SS 433, where emissions are made by energetic electrons spiraling in a magnetic field – a process called synchrotron radiation. “The IXPE data show that the magnetic field near the acceleration region points in the direction the jets are moving,” said astrophysicist Philip Kaaret of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, and principal investigator of the IXPE mission, along with lead author of a new paper about the findings at SS 433. “The high level of polarization seen with IXPE shows that the magnetic field is well ordered, with at least half of the field aligned in the same direction,” Kaaret said. That finding was unexpected, he said. Researchers have long theorized that the interaction between the jet and the interstellar medium – the environment of gas and dust between stars – likely creates a shock, leading to disordered magnetic fields. The data suggests a new possibility, Kaaret said – that the magnetic fields within the powerful jets may be “trapped” and stretched when they collide with interstellar matter, directly impacting their alignment in the region of particle acceleration. Since the 1980s, researchers have surmised that SS 433’s jets act as particle accelerators. In 2018, observers at the High-Altitude Water Cherenkov Observatory in Puebla, Mexico, verified the jets’ acceleration effect, and scientists used NASA’s NuSTAR (Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array) and the European Space Agency’s XMM-Newton observatories to pinpoint the region of acceleration. As researchers continue to assess IXPE findings and study new targets in space, its data also could help determine whether the same mechanism acts to align magnetic fields in outflows expelled by a variety of phenomena – from black hole jets streaming away from supernova remnants to debris ejected from exploded stars such as blazars. “This very delicate measurement was made possible by the imaging capabilities of IXPE’s X-ray polarimeters, making possible the detection of the tenuous signal in a small region of the jet 95 light-years from the central black hole,” said Paolo Soffitta, Italian principal investigator for the IXPE mission. The new paper, detailing IXPE’s observations at SS 433, is available in the latest edition of The Astrophysical Journal. IXPE is a collaboration between NASA and the Italian Space Agency with partners and science collaborators in 12 countries. IXPE is led by Marshall. Smith, an Aeyon/MTS employee, supports the Marshall Office of Communications. › Back to Top NASA Shares Lessons Learned in Low Earth Orbit Through Payload Workshop By Jessica Barnett NASA welcomed commercial partners from around the globe to Marshall Space Flight Center for a three-day workshop last fall, highlighting what the agency has learned during its more than 20 years in Low Earth orbit. Through tours, panels, and one-on-one discussions, the workshop provided an overview and best practices of what NASA does to prepare International Space Station payloads for operations, so commercial partners can leverage NASA’s knowledge and experience as they build their own space stations and presence in Low Earth orbit. NASA experts discuss International Space Station payload operations during a three-day workshop held Nov. 7-9 at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. The workshop provided NASA’s commercial partners an overview and NASA’s best practices for preparing space station payloads for operations.NASA/Sherresa Lockett “We have so much history and knowledge, and we want to impart on them what we know so they can think about it, and see what applies to them and what doesn’t,” said Eleasa Kim, who serves as the Payload Operations Lead for NASA’s Commercial Low Earth Orbit Development Program, also known as CLDP, supporting Marshall’s Human Exploration Development and Operations Division. NASA’s CLDP is supporting the development of commercially owned and operated Low Earth orbit destinations from which NASA, along with other customers, can purchase services and stimulate the growth of commercial activities. As commercial Low Earth orbit destinations become available, NASA intends to implement an orderly transition from current space station operations to these new commercial destinations. More than 70 people joined the workshop in person and online. Attendees were able to listen to experts discuss a litany of topics, from a general overview of the payload life cycle to safety reviews and flight readiness checks to real-time support and anomaly response. Among the attendees, was John Selmarten, senior manager, Payload Project Management at Axiom Space. Selmarten said the workshop offered invaluable help to the company. “The CLDP workshop offered industry access to, and an overview of, NASA’s wide variety of subject matter experts, tools, and facilities currently utilized to operate payloads on the ISS,” Selmarten said. “This information is invaluable to Axiom Space as we begin the transformation of low-Earth orbit into a global marketplace through research, in-space manufacturing, and tech demos.” For Alex Stuetz and Denis Healy of Los Angeles-based aerospace company Vast, it was an amazing opportunity to hear from people with decades of experience. “I certainly benefited from the breadth of topics covered,” said Healy, who serves as Vast’s mission operations engineer II. “It wasn’t three or four very specific, niche areas, but there was a good scope of subjects covered, and the details and nuance as it relates to each.” The pair also took part in the tours and one-on-one discussions made available through the workshop. Kirt Costello, standing, speaks to a room of NASA’s commercial partners during the Payload Operations Workshop. Costello is the utilization manager for the commercial Low Earth Orbit Development Program.NASA/Jessica Barnett “It’s incredibly helpful to be able to have face-to-face conversations and get a tour of the facilities, to see the hardware,” said Stuetz, Vast’s mission manager. “It’s these types of events that really push everything forward rapidly and in a collaborative manner.” Marshall team members were equally excited to share their knowledge with NASA’s commercial partners. “It’s a chance to share and build something new, to continue the Low Earth orbit presence,” said Joe Kitchen, operations discipline lead for the Planning and Analysis Branch of the Payload Mission Operations Division at Marshall. “Commercializing is really the only way to enable it, so it’s cool to be part of this.” Marty O’Toole, the Starlab payloads lead on the Voyager team, also shared his appreciation for the MSFC Payload Ops team and the workshop. “It was a very informative briefing on all aspects of ISS payload operations, from early integration activities through planning, certification, real-time ops and return,” said O’Toole. “The presentation format with a group of experienced individuals assuming their CADRE (Cooperative Autonomous Distributed Robotic Exploration) roles helped to demonstrate and emphasize the detailed coordination needed across all the ops functions. This exercise stimulated lots of discussion and thinking about how Starlab can implement and streamline its operations program going forward.” Kim explained that the workshop is the first of its kind for her team, which spent three months preparing, including dry runs on each Friday of the final month leading up to the workshop. In addition to preparing tours and panels, they arranged social events, networking opportunities, case studies with filmed simulations, and more for the commercial partners. Learn more about Commercial Destinations in Low Earth Orbit. Barnett, a Media Fusion employee, supports the Marshall Office of Communications. › Back to Top Brr, It’s Cold in Here! NASA’s Cryo Efforts Beyond the Atmosphere Establishing sustained operations at the Moon and Mars presents a multitude of opportunities and challenges NASA has yet to encounter. Many of these activities require new technologies and processes to ensure the agency is prepared for its ambitious Artemis missions and those beyond. One of those challenges is working with cryogenic fluids, meaning fluids existing in a liquid state between minus 238 degrees Fahrenheit and absolute zero (minus 460 F). These fluids – liquid hydrogen (the most difficult to work with), methane, and oxygen – are vital to spacecraft propulsion and life support systems. The fluids may also be produced in the future on the lunar and Martian surfaces via ISRU (in-situ resource utilization). A 2019 image of the SHIIVER tank sitting inside the In-Space Propulsion Facility’s vacuum chamber at NASA’s Neil Armstrong Test Facility in Sandusky, Ohio. The tank was part of a Cryogenic Fluid Management project effort to test the tank at extreme temperatures and ensure the new technologies kept the propellants inside cold and in a liquid state.Credit: NASA Human exploration in deep space requires storing large amounts of cryogenic fluids for weeks, months, or longer, as well as transferring between spacecraft or fuel depots in orbit and on the surface. Each aspect is challenging, and, to date, large amounts of cryogenic fluids have only been stored for hours in space. Engineers working in NASA’s Cryogenic Fluid Management, or CFM, Portfolio – led by Technology Demonstration Missions within the Space Technology Mission Directorate and managed at the agency’s Glenn Research Center and Marshall Space Flight Center – are solving those issues ahead of future missions. “This is a task neither NASA, nor our partners, have ever done before,” said Lauren Ameen, deputy CFM Portfolio manager. “Our future mission concepts rely on massive amounts of cryogenic fluids, and we have to figure out how to efficiently use them over long durations, which requires a series of new technologies far exceeding today’s capabilities.” For a cryogenic fluid to be useable, it must remain in a frigid, liquid state. However, the physics of space travel – moving in and out of sunlight and long stays in low gravity – make keeping those fluids in a liquid state and knowing how much is in the tank complicated.   The heat sources in space ­– like the Sun and the spacecraft’s exhaust – create a hot environment inside and around storage tanks causing evaporation or “boiloff.” When fluid evaporates, it can no longer efficiently fuel a rocket engine. It also increases the risk of leakage or, even worse, a tank rupture. Being unsure of how much gas is left in the tank isn’t how our explorers want to fly to Mars. Low gravity is challenging because the fuel wants to float around – also known as “slosh” – which makes accurately gauging the amount of liquid and transferring it very difficult. “Previous missions using cryogenic propellants were in space for only a few days due to boiloff or venting losses,” Ameen noted. “Those spacecraft used thrust and other maneuvers to apply force to settle propellant tanks and enable fuel transfers. During Artemis, spacecraft will dwell in low gravity for much longer and need to transfer liquid hydrogen in space for the first time, so we must mitigate boiloff and find innovative ways to transfer and measure cryogenic propellants.” NASA’s CFM portfolio encompasses 24 development activities and investments to reduce boiloff, improve gauging, and advance fluid transfer techniques for in-space propulsion, landers, and ISRU. There are four near-term efforts taking place on the ground, in near-Earth orbit, and soon on the lunar surface.   Flight Demos In 2020, NASA awarded four CFM-focused Tipping Point contracts to American industry – Eta Space, Lockheed Martin, SpaceX, and United Launch Alliance – to assist in developing and demonstrating CFM technologies in space. Each company is scheduled to launch its respective demonstration in either 2024 or 2025, performing multiple tests using liquid hydrogen to validate technologies and processes. Radio Frequency Mass Gauge To improve gauging, NASA has developed RFMG (Radio Frequency Mass Gauges) to allow for more accurate fluid measurement in low-gravity or low-thrust conditions. Engineers do this by measuring the electromagnetic spectrum, or radio waves, within a spacecraft’s tank throughout the mission, comparing them to fluid simulations to accurately gauge remaining fuel. The RFMG has been proven in ground tests, sub-orbital parabolic flight, and on the International Space Station, and it will soon be tested on the Moon during an upcoming Commercial Lunar Payload Services flight with Intuitive Machines. Once demonstrated in the lunar environment, NASA will continue to develop and scale the technology to enable improved spacecraft and lander operations. Cryocoolers Cryocoolers act like heat exchangers for large propellant tanks to mitigate boiloff when combined with innovative tank insulation systems. With industry partners, like Creare, NASA has begun testing high-capacity cryocooler systems that pump the “working” fluid through a network of tubes installed on the tank to keep it cool. NASA plans to increase tank size and capabilities to meet mission requirements before conducting future flight demonstrations. CryoFill NASA is also developing a liquefaction system to turn gaseous oxygen into liquid oxygen on the surface of the Moon or Mars to refuel landers using propellant produced in situ. This approach uses various methods to cool oxygen down to critical temperature (at least minus 297 degrees Fahrenheit), where it condenses, turning from a gas to a liquid. Initial development and testing have proven NASA can do this efficiently, and the team continues to scale the technology to relevant tank sizes and quantities for future operations. Ultimately, NASA efforts to develop and test CFM systems that are energy-, mass-, and cost-efficient are critical to the success of the agency’s ambitious missions to the Moon, Mars, and beyond.  For more info, view the CFM fact sheet. › Back to Top Astronomers Find Spark of Star Birth Across Billions of Years Four images from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and other telescopes represent a sample of galaxy clusters that are part of the largest and most complete study to learn what triggers stars to form in the universe’s biggest galaxies, as described in a press release. This research showed that the conditions for stellar conception in these exceptionally massive galaxies have not changed over the last ten billion years. These images represent a sample of galaxy clusters that are part of the largest and most complete study to learn what triggers stars to form in the universe’s biggest galaxies. Clusters of galaxies are the largest objects in the universe held together by gravity and contain huge amounts of hot gas seen in X-rays. This research, made using Chandra and other telescopes, showed that the conditions for stellar conception in these exceptionally massive galaxies have not changed over the last ten billion years. In these images, X-rays from Chandra are shown along with optical data from Hubble.X-ray: NASA/CXC/MIT/M. Calzadilla el al.; Optical: NASA/ESA/STScI; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/N. Wolk & J. Major Galaxy clusters are the largest objects in the universe held together by gravity and contain huge amounts of hot gas seen in X-rays. This hot gas weighs several times the total mass of all the stars in all the hundreds of galaxies typically found in galaxy clusters. In the four galaxy cluster images in this graphic, X-rays from hot gas detected by Chandra are in purple and optical data from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, mostly showing galaxies in the clusters, are yellow and cyan. In this study, researchers looked at the brightest and most massive class of galaxies in the universe, called BCGs (brightest cluster galaxies), in the centers of 95 clusters of galaxies. The galaxy clusters chosen are themselves an extreme sample – the most massive clusters in a large survey using the SPT (South Pole Telescope), with funding support from the National Science Foundation and Department of Energy – and are located between 3.4 and 9.9 billion light-years from Earth. The four galaxy clusters shown here at located at distances of 3.9 billion (SPT-CLJ0106-5943), 5.6 billion (SPT-CLJ0307-6225), 6.4 billion (SPT-CLJ0310-4647) and 7.7 billion (SPT-CLJ0615-5746) light-years from Earth, and the images are 1.7 million, 2 million, 2.4 million and 2.2 million light-years across, respectively. By comparison our galaxy is only about 100,000 light-years across. In SPT-CLJ0307-6225 the BCG is near the bottom right of the image and in the other images they are near the centers. Some of the long, narrow features are caused by gravitational lensing, where mass in the clusters is warping the light from galaxies behind the clusters. The images have been rotated from standard astronomer’s configuration of North up by 20 degrees clockwise (SPT-CLJ0106-5943), 6.2 degrees counterclockwise (SPT-CLJ0307-6225), 29,2 degrees counterclockwise (SPT-CLJ0310-4647) and 24.2 degrees clockwise (SPT-CLJ0615-5746). The team found that the precise trigger for stars to form in the galaxies that they studied is when the amount of disordered motion in the hot gas – a physical concept called “entropy” – falls below a critical threshold. Below this threshold, the hot gas inevitably cools to form new stars. In addition to the X-ray data from Chandra X-ray Observatory and radio data from the SPT already mentioned, this result also used radio data from the Australia Telescope Compact Array, and the Australian SKA Pathfinder Telescope, infrared data from NASA’s WISE satellite, and several optical telescopes. The optical telescopes used in this study were the Magellan 6.5-m Telescopes, the Gemini South Telescope, the Blanco 4-m Telescope (DECam, MOSAIC-II) and the Swope 1m Telescope. A total of almost 50 days of Chandra observing time was used for this result. Michael Caldazilla of MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) presented these results at the 243rd meeting of the American Astronomical Society in New Orleans, Louisana. In addition, there is a paper submitted to The Astrophysical Journal led by Caldazilla on this result. NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center manages the Chandra program. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory’s Chandra X-ray Center controls science operations from Cambridge, Massachusetts, and flight operations from Burlington, Massachusetts. Read more about Chandra. › Back to Top NASA Selects 12 Companies for Space Station Services Contract NASA has selected 12 companies to provide research, engineering, and mission integration services for the International Space Station Program. The $478 million Research, Engineering & Mission Integration Services-2 or REMIS-2 contract will support the work of the International Space Station Program based at NASA’s Johnson Space Center. The companies will provide spaceflight, ground hardware and software, sustaining engineering functions and services, payload facility integration, and research mission integration operations services. Each company will receive a multiple-award, indefinite-quantity contract with firm-fixed price and cost-plus-fixed-fee task orders. The seven-year contract extends through Sept. 30, 2030, with an option to extend through Sept. 30, 2032. The companies selected are: Aegis Aerospace, Inc., Houston Axient Corp, Huntsville, Alabama Cimarron Software Services, Houston Consolidated Safety Services, Exploration Park, Florida JES Tech, Houston KBR Wyle, Fulton, Maryland Leidos, Webster, Texas Metis, Albuquerque, New Mexico Oceaneering, Houston Tec-Masters, Huntsville Teledyne Brown Engineering, Huntsville University of Alabama at Birmingham, Alabama The majority of the work will take place at contractor facilities across the country. Services also may be required at other NASA centers, contractor or subcontractor locations, or vendor facilities as requirements warrant. The contract also includes a small business reserve, which was fulfilled by selecting Aegis, Cimarron, Consolidated Safety Services, JES Tech, Metis, and Tec-Masters.  › Back to Top

[newsworld-nw]

4 Reasons Why Oil Prices Have Just Seen a Middle East Risk Premium

In line with Capital Economics, there are 4 the explanation why oil costs should not buying and selling increased than earlier than the Hamas assault on Israel practically three weeks in the past. Previously, "rising geopolitical tensions within the Center East — even when they did not have an effect on provide — have been sufficient to push oil costs increased," Carolyn Bain, chief commodities economist at Capital Economics, wrote in a notice Thursday. "However to this point, buyers have not rushed to cost in new dangers." "Cautious oil market response to outbreak of battle in Israel seemingly displays big uncertainty about closing final result, however Center East threat premium considerably low". As of Thursday, US benchmark December West Texas Intermediate crude CLZ23, -2.24% CL.1, -2.24% It traded at $83.88 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Alternate. That is about 1.3% increased than the $82.79 settlement on Oct. 6, the day earlier than the Oct. 7 Hamas assault that sparked the warfare between Israel and Gaza. International benchmark December Brent crude BRN00, -2.05% BRNZ23, -2.10% Thursday traded at $88.49 - 4.6% increased than the Oct. 6 settlement Bain mentioned that with the oil market at present in a provide deficit, the danger of further provide disruptions ought to have had a "overwhelming impact on costs". Israel doesn't produce any oil so there may be little affect on provides, however "there's a very actual threat... that battle will escalate and regional gamers, who're massive oil producers, will get entangled". On the finish of 2021, Iran accounts for twenty-four% of the Center East's oil reserves and 12% of the world's oil reserves, in line with the US Power Info Administration. Iran is understood to assist the militant group Hamas. learn on Israel-Gaza Struggle Situation: Oil May Be $95, $100 and $115 a Barrel Nonetheless, Gulf oil producers at the moment are "far more built-in into world monetary markets" than up to now and do not wish to threat sanctions, Bain mentioned. Capital Economics, nevertheless, "has argued for a while that the Center East-related threat premium on oil costs has been declining, in all probability for the reason that Nineteen Seventies," he mentioned. Listed here are 4 the explanation why threat premiums fall: First, "the Center East's share of worldwide oil manufacturing has fallen from 40% in 1970 to about 30% in 2022," Bain mentioned. Efforts have additionally been made throughout the area to ease potential choke factors, Bain mentioned, including that Saudi Arabia has constructed export routes alongside its west coast in order that it may well bypass the Strait of Hormuz if the oil choke level is blocked. Second, "there may be another and extra versatile supply of provide within the type of US shale oil," Bain mentioned. Third, most international locations now have "big strategic reserves to drop within the occasion of a provide disruption," he mentioned. The Biden administration final 12 months ordered the largest-ever launch of oil from the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve within the wake of the Russia-Ukraine warfare. Learn: US able to play tug of warfare with OPEC+ for oil market share as Center East hostilities warrant output increase As for motive quantity 4, world oil demand progress is now "considerably decrease than up to now, and could possibly be unfavourable because the electrification of transportation accelerates," Bain mentioned. In a month-to-month report launched on Tuesday, the Worldwide Power Company mentioned world demand for fossil fuels might peak earlier than 2030. That mentioned, Bain emphasised that if Iran or one other main oil producer within the area grew to become actively concerned within the Israel-Hamas battle, the market would "nearly definitely" improve oil costs. For now, "it seems that buyers do not see it as an enormous threat," he mentioned. "The massive uncertainty concerning the final result of the battle implies that we goal to revise our (oil-price) forecasts and we are able to solely focus on dangers when fundamentals change." #Causes #Oil #Costs #Center #East #Danger #Premium Read the full article

[mystlnewsonline]

Former Coinbase Mgr. Agree to Settle Insider Trading Charges

Former Coinbase Manager and His Brother Agree to Settle Insider Trading Charges Relating to Crypto Asset Securities Washington, DC (STL.News) The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that former Coinbase product manager Ishan Wahi and his brother, Nikhil Wahi, agreed to settle charges that they engaged in insider trading through a scheme to trade ahead of multiple announcements regarding at least nine crypto asset securities that would be made available for trading on the Coinbase platform.  Ishan and Nikhil Wahi each agreed to be permanently enjoined from violating Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act and Rule 10b-5 and to pay disgorgement of ill-gotten gains, plus prejudgment interest.  As is often the case when a criminal court has already ordered defendants to forfeit their ill-gotten gains, the disgorgement and prejudgment interest in the SEC's case would be deemed satisfied by the orders of forfeiture of the Wahi brothers' assets in the criminal action, if approved by the court, and the SEC determined not to seek civil penalties in light of the Wahi brothers' prison sentences. The SEC's complaint, filed on July 21, 2022, in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, alleged that, while employed at Coinbase, Ishan Wahi helped to coordinate the platform's public listing announcements that included what crypto assets would be made available for trading.  According to the complaint, Coinbase treated such information as confidential and warned its employees not to trade on the basis of, or tip others with, that information.  However, from at least June 2021 to April 2022, in breach of his duties, Ishan repeatedly tipped the timing and content of upcoming listing announcements to his brother, Nikhil Wahi, and his friend, Sameer Ramani.  Ahead of those announcements, which usually resulted in an increase in the assets' prices, Nikhil Wahi and Ramani allegedly purchased at least 25 crypto assets, at least nine of which were securities, and then typically sold them shortly after the announcements for a profit.  The Wahi brothers agreed, as part of the settlement, not to deny the SEC's allegations. "While the technologies at issue, in this case, for may be new, the conduct is not.  We allege that Ishan and Nikhil Wahi, respectively, tipped and traded securities based on material nonpublic information, and that's insider trading, pure and simple," said Gurbir S. Grewal, Director of the SEC's Division of Enforcement. "The federal securities laws do not exempt crypto asset securities from the prohibition against insider trading, nor does the SEC.  I am grateful to the SEC staff for successfully working to resolve this matter." Subject to court approval, Ishan and Nikhil Wahi consented to the entry of final judgments that permanently enjoin them from violating Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5 thereunder.  In the criminal action, Ishan and Nikhil Wahi pled guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud. As a result, Ishan Wahi was sentenced to 24 months in prison and ordered to forfeit 10.97 ether and 9,440 Tether, and Nikhil was sentenced to 10 months in prison and ordered to forfeit $892,500. The SEC's investigation was conducted by Michael Brennan, Jennie B. Krasner, and Gregory Padgett, with assistance from Patrick McCluskey, Sejal Bhakta, and Donald Battle.  The case was supervised by Paul Kim, Joseph Sansone, and Carolyn M. Welshhans.  The litigation is led by Daniel Maher and Peter Lallas and supervised by Olivia Choe.  The SEC appreciates the assistance of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York and the FBI. SOURCE: Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Read the full article

[beardedmrbean]

HOUSTON — A Texas inmate whose lawyers say has a history of mental illness faces execution on Wednesday for killing his mother and burying her body in her backyard nearly 20 years ago.

Tracy Beatty, 61, is scheduled to receive a lethal injection Wednesday evening at the state penitentiary in Huntsville. He was sentenced to death for strangling his mother, Carolyn Click, after they had argued in November 2003 in her East Texas home.

Authorities say Beatty buried his 62-year-old mother’s body beside her mobile home in Whitehouse, about 115 miles southeast of Dallas, and then spent her money on drugs and alcohol.

Beatty’s attorneys have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to stay his scheduled execution, arguing he was being prevented from receiving a full examination to determine if he is intellectually disabled and possibly ineligible to be put to death. He has had three prior execution dates.

His attorneys have requested that state prison officials allow Beatty to be uncuffed during mental health evaluations by experts. The experts argue that having Beatty uncuffed during neurological and other tests is crucial to make an informed decision about intellectual disability and evaluate his mental health.

One expert who examined Beatty said he “is clearly psychotic and has a complex paranoid delusional belief system” and that he lives in a “complex delusional world” where he believes that there is a “vast conspiracy of correctional officers who . . . ‘torture’ him via a device in his ear so he can hear their menacing voices,” Beatty’s lawyers wrote in their Supreme Court petition.

In 2021, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice put in place an informal policy, citing security and liability concerns, that it would only allow an inmate to be unshackled during an expert evaluation through a court order.

Federal judges in East Texas and Houston and the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans have previously ruled against Beatty’s request for an evaluation without handcuffs. The federal appeals court called Beatty’s request a “delay tactic.” U.S. District Judge Charles Eskridge in Houston last week questioned why Beatty’s lawyers during years of appeals had not previously raised any claim relating to his mental health and that requiring handcuffs during such an evaluation is “quite simply, a rational security concern.”

While the Supreme Court has prohibited the death penalty for individuals who are intellectually disabled, it has not barred such punishment for those with serious mental illness, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

In 2019, the Texas Legislature considered a bill that would have prohibited the death penalty for someone with severe mental illness. The legislation did not pass.

On Monday, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles unanimously declined to commute Beatty’s death sentence to a lesser penalty or to grant a six-month reprieve.

Beatty had a “volatile and combative relationship” with his mother, according to prosecutors. One neighbor, Lieanna Wilkerson, testified Click had told her that Beatty had assaulted her several times before, including once where he had “beaten her so severely that he had left her for dead.” But Wilkerson said Click had still been excited to have Beatty move in back with her in October 2003 so they could mend their relationship.

But mother and son argued daily and Click asked her son twice to move out, including just before she was killed, according to testimony from Beatty’s 2004 trial.

“Several times (Beatty) had said he just wanted to shut her up, that he just wanted to choke her and shut her up,” Wilkerson testified.

If Beatty is executed, he would be the fourth inmate put to death this year in Texas and the 13th in the U.S. Another execution in Texas — the last one in the state in 2022 — is scheduled for next week.

[reasoningdaily]

Los Angeles, California Sept. 22, 2022 Los Angeles long-time resident, Walter Foster, age 80, holds up a sign as the Reparations Task Force meets to hear public input on reparations at the California Science Center in Los Angeles on Sept. 22, 2022. Photo: Carolyn Cole (Getty Images)

It’s been well over a century since slavery ended, and our promised 40 acres and a mule are still nowhere to be found. But that doesn’t mean people have given up the fight. The push for reparations for Black Americans has picked up steam in the last several years. So buckle up, and we’ll walk you through everything you need to know about reparations.

$50 M Awarded To Descendants in Minnesota and Dakotas

The Bush Foundation announced that they’d committed $50 million to descendants of formerly enslaved people in Minnesota and the Dakotas. The Foundation made it very clear that this wasn’t a reparations program, but that doesn’t mean they’re not worth talking about in the broader reparations conversation.

California Moves Forward With Reparations

In California, the fight for reparations is underway. Last month, the state’s reparations task force approved a series of reparations proposals, including cash payments and homeownership grants, for the state legislature to review.

San Francisco’s Reparation’s Plan

Now here’s the plan everyone wants to know about. San Francisco made massive waves after city officials approved a draft proposal, which included a $5 million per person payout for qualified descendants of formerly enslaved people. Although that part of the draft plan doesn’t seem super likely to be enacted, the proposal includes 100 recommendations aimed at benefiting Black San Franciscans. 

Where Did 40 Acres and a Mule Come From?

While we’ve got you. Here’s a history lesson. After the civil war, union leader met with Black leaders in Savanah, Georgia. Following the meeting, General William Sherman signed Field Order 15, which decreed that roughly 400,000 acres of confiscated Confederate land be given to the Black families that had been forced to tend to it. As a part of the order, 40 acres of “tillable” land was to be given to each Black family. Some families were also supposed to be given mules, hence the “40 acres and a mule” thing.

What Happened to Reparations Post-Civil War?

Obviously, Black families never received their 40 acres. So what gives? Well, after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, President Andrew Johnson reversed Field Order 15 and gave the land to former slave owners.

Reparations For Other Crimes Committed By The United States

The list of people directly harmed by the United States is pretty long. And in some cases the U.S. federal government has paid reparations to those groups, meaning the concept isn’t inconceivable. Here’s a short list of those reparations.

To see the next 16 states please Click Here

[journeydb]

June 19 2022 Boulder County

Happy Pride Month and Happy Father’s Day!  We took a bike ride with friends Carolyn, Jim, Robyn, and Joe out to Moxie, our favorite bakery, in Louisville, this morning.  We are all part of a group of friends who cycle together regularly and we have even take vacations together.

After breakfast I headed out to the Sunday service at the Boulder Valley UU Fellowship in Lafayette while everybody else rode home.  The service was lovely and brought tears to my eyes as I remembered my father and all he did for our family.

I passed by this wildflower garden on my way back home this morning and had to take a photo because it was so lovely.

Our Father’s Day family brunch was attended by Hobie, Katie and Maple, Katie’s mother, Courtney, and members of our cousin, Debbie’s, family, the Anastasis, comprised of her husband Bob and children Nick and Larisa..  It was good to see everyone because we hadn’t spent much time together in the past few years because of the pandemic.

This was the first time the Anatasis had seen Maple and she wasn’t quite sure what to make of these people.  She is a very mellow baby and she is also interested in everything happening around her so she let people hold her and barely let out a whimper.

When her grandparents held her, she was so comfortable that she napped!  She was also probably a bit worn out by all the attention and commotion.

For someone who just had a baby a month ago, Katie looks AMAZING!  She really didn’t put on too much wait during her pregnancy so she’ll probably be at her ideal weight soon.  The rest of us, on the other hand, feel like we need to get out in nature or to the gym more often and we’re grateful that summer is virtually here, so we can be more active again.

Since Hobie and Katie hadn’t had a baby shower, except for the on-line one, which actually gave them many essential items they needed, we used this opportunity to give them gifts and help them continue to prepare for Maple’s growth and change.

[fmhiphop]

Carolyn Bryant, The Woman Behind The Lynching Of Emmett Till, Has Died

In in the late summer of 1955, the mutilated body of 14-year-old Emmett Louis Till was pulled from the Tallahatchie River in Mississippi. This came after the boy was taken from his great uncle Moses Wright's home several nights before by white men intending to lynch him. To understand why he was killed, we must examine the cause. And it all began with a woman by the name of Carolyn Bryant, also known as Carolyn Bryant Donham. Emmett Till was born in Chicago, Illinois, on July 25, 1941.  Till was sent to visit relatives down south in August 1955. During his stay, he was accused of whistling at a then-21-year-old Carolyn Bryant. She would later admit to lying. However, at that time, even being accused of speaking or looking at white people in the “wrong way,” resulted in harassment or worse—death. Unfortunately, Till was a victim of these social rules. On the night of August 28th, members of Emmett's family saw him taken by Roy Bryant and JW Milam. During the time he was missing, he was beaten, shot in the head, then tied to a metal fan with barbed wire, and tossed into the river. The next day, they were arrested and two days later, Till was discovered. According to many historians, these events would later spark the start of the Civil Rights Movement. Direct Aftermath On September 3, Mamie Till Mobley, Emmett's mother, held an open-casket funeral purposely to expose the horrors of lynching. Thousands of people came to see the body. Millions of people also saw Till's bludgeoned face on the cover of Jet Magazine. A grand jury indicted Milam and Bryant following Till's burial. Later that month, Jet magazine and The Chicago Defender published photos of Emmett's body. The trial began. Mamie flew in to attend. During these legal proceedings, Moses Wright stood and pointed at the defendants, confirming their presence at the scene of the crime. An action that took a lot of bravery given the time period and setting. On September 23, a jury of all white men acquitted Emmett's killers. They deliberated for only 67 minutes. Multiple Europeans publications covered the trials. In November, the pair are officially free after a jury refuses to indict them on kidnapping charges. A January 1956 issue of Look Magazine published Milam and Bryant's confessions to the murder. For their crimes, the pair received a reported $4,000. In 2008, Bryant penned a memoir titled,  I Am More Than A Wolf Whistle. The book was set to be released after Bryant's death in 2036, but details of the memoir was leaked by author Timothy Tyson after he interviewed her. The entire thing became accessible to the public in 2022. In the books, she claims she was grabbed by Till, but in the interview with Tyson, she took back the statement saying she made it up. In fact, over the last 60 years, she's changed her story many times. Generational Impact And Trauma In 2022, a grand jury, nearly 70 years after the fact, decided to indict Bryant. However, after seven hours of deliberation, the jury found there wasn't enough evidence to indict Bryant on kidnapping and manslaughter charges, further salting the wounds of many Black Americans. In an interview just a few days ago with Till's cousin and best friend , Rev. Wheeler Parker Jr. said now that Bryant is gone, all hopes of accountability are off the table. Even though no one now will be held to account for the death of my cousin and best friend, it is up to all of us to be accountable to the challenges we still face in overcoming racial injustice. Decades later, Black people are still being lynched by so-called vigilantes and police officers. In addition, , they are being subjected to inhumane treatment via mass incarceration and stop-and-frisk laws. Naturally, Bryant's passing has made many people emotional. Some people are expressing sorrow over Emmett's short life, while some are celebrating Bryant's death. And though most parties involved in the case are all gone now, the tragedy and injustice is still felt among the different generations of Black Americans. Written by Kimberly Stelly | Letterboxd | Instagram | Twitter Follow and like FMHipHop on YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and Spotify! Read the full article