Rock of Riches

After disappointing setbacks and a delay over the summer, NASA says it's finally reviving its mission to explore a tantalizing and giant space rock lurking deep in the Asteroid Belt.

Known as 16 Psyche, the NASA-targeted asteroid comprises a full one percent of the mass of the Asteroid Bet, and is speculated to be the core of an ancient planet. But Psyche's size isn't what intrigues scientists so much as its metal-rich composition, believed to be harboring a wealth of iron, nickel, and gold worth an estimated $10 quintillion — easily exceeding the worth of the Earth's entire economy. Although, to be clear, they're not interested in the metals' monetary value but rather its possibly planetary origins.

Back On Track

Initially slated to launch in August 2022, NASA's aptly named Psyche spacecraft became plagued with a persistent flight software issue that led the space agency to miss its launch window that closed on October 11.

But after surviving an independent review determining whether the mission should be scrapped or not, NASA has formally announced that its spacecraft's journey to Psyche will be going ahead, planned to launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket as early as October 10, 2023.

"I'm extremely proud of the Psyche team," said Laurie Leshin, director of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in a statement. "During this review, they have demonstrated significant progress already made toward the future launch date. I am confident in the plan moving forward and excited by the unique and important science this mission will return."

Although the new launch date is only a little over a year late, the expected arrival at the asteroid Psyche is set back by over three years — 2029 instead of 2026 — due to having to wait for another opportunity to slingshot off of Mars' gravity.

Peering Into a Planet

Once it arrives, the NASA spacecraft will orbit around the asteroid and probe it with an array of instruments, including a multispectral imager, gamma ray and neutron spectrometers, and a magnetometer, according to the agency.

In doing so, scientists hope to determine if the asteroid is indeed the core of a nascent planet known as a planetesimal. If it is, it could prove to be an invaluable opportunity to understand the interior of terrestrial planets like our own.

More on NASA: NASA Announces Plan to Fix Moon Rocket, and Maybe Launch It Eventually

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NASA Sets Launch Date for Mission to $10 Quintillion Asteroid

Now that Tesla CEO Elon Musk has taken over Twitter, the billionaire has been frantically shuffling through ambitious plans to turn the ailing social media platform into a revenue-driving business.

Case in point, according to internal email obtained by The Washington Post, Musk is plotting for Twitter to charge users to view videos posted by content creators and take a cut of the proceeds — a highly controversial idea that's already been met with internal skepticism.

The team of Twitter engineers has "identified the risk as high" in the email, citing "risks related to copyrighted content, creator/user trust issues, and legal compliance."

In short, Musk is blazing ahead with his infamously ambitious timelines — a "move fast and break things" approach that could signify a tidal change for Twitter's historically sluggish approach to launching new features.

Musk has already made some big structural changes to Twitter, having fired high-up positions at the company and dissolved its board of directors.

The company will also likely be facing mass layoffs, according to The Washington Post.

The new feature detailed in the new email, which is being referred to as "Paywalled Video," allows creators to "enable the paywall once a video has been added to the tweet" and chose from a preset list of prices, ranging from $1 to $10.

"This will also give Twitter a revenue stream to reward content creators," Musk tweeted on Tuesday, adding that "creators need to make a living!"

But whether Twitter users will be willing to pay for stuff that was previously free remains anything but certain.

Musk has already announced that he is planning to charge $8 a month for Twitter users to stay verified, which has been met with derision.

The billionaire CEO is facing an uphill battle. Now that the company is private, he has to pay around $1 billion in annual interest payments, a result from his $44 buyout, according to the WaPo.

Compounding the trouble, Reuters reported last week that Twitter is bleeding some of its most active users.

Meanwhile, Musk's chaotic moves are likely to alienate advertisers, with the Interpublic Group, a massive inter-agency advertising group, recommending that its clients suspend all paid advertising for at least the week.

That doesn't bode well. It's not out of the question that a paywalled video feature may facilitate the monetization of pornographic content, which may end up scaring off advertisers even further — but Twitter's exact intentions for the feature are still unclear.

According to Reuters, around 13 percent of the site's content is currently marked not safe for work (NSFW).

It's part of Musk's attempt to shift revenue away from advertising on the platform. In a tweet last week, he promised advertisers that Twitter wouldn't become a "free-for-all hellscape."

But that hasn't stopped advertisers from already leaving in droves.

All in all, a paywalled video feature could mark a significant departure for Twitter, a platform still primarily known for short snippets of text.

For now, all we can do is watch.

READ MORE: Elon Musk’s Twitter is working on paid-video feature with ‘high’ risk [The Washington Post]

More on Twitter: Elon Musk Pleads With Stephen King to Pay for Blue Checkmark

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Twitter Working on Plan to Charge Users to Watch Videos

Astronomers are puzzled by the strange behavior of certain crooked clusters of stars, which appear to be violating our conventional understanding of gravity.

Massive clusters of stars usually are bound together in spirals at the center of galaxies. Some of these clusters fall under a category astrophysicists call open star clusters, which are created in a relatively short period of time as they ignite in a huge cloud of gas.

During this process, loose stars accumulate in a pair of "tidal tails," one of which is being pulled behind, while the other moves ahead.

"According to Newton’s laws of gravity, it’s a matter of chance in which of the tails a lost star ends up," Jan Pflamm-Altenburg of the University of Bonn in Germany, co-author of a new paper published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, in a statement. "So both tails should contain about the same number of stars."

But some of their recent observations seemingly defy conventional physics.

"However, in our work we were able to prove for the first time that this is not true," Pflamm-Altenburg added. "In the clusters we studied, the front tail always contains significantly more stars nearby to the cluster than the rear tail."

In fact, their new findings are far more in line with a different theory called "Modified Newtonian Dynamics" (MOND).

"Put simply, according to MOND, stars can leave a cluster through two different doors," Pavel Kroupa, Pflamm-Altenburg's colleague at the University of Bonn and lead author, explained in the statement. "One leads to the rear tidal tail, the other to the front."

"However, the first is much narrower than the second — so it’s less likely that a star will leave the cluster through it," he added. "Newton’s theory of gravity, on the other hand, predicts that both doors should be the same width."

The researchers' simulations, taking MOND into consideration, could explain a lot. For one, they suggest that open star clusters survive a much shorter period of time than what is expected from Newton's laws of physics.

"This explains a mystery that has been known for a long time," Kroupa explained. "Namely, star clusters in nearby galaxies seem to be disappearing faster than they should."

But not everybody agrees that Newton's laws should be replaced with MOND, something that could shake the foundations of physics.

"It’s somewhat promising, but it does not provide completely definitive evidence for MOND," University of Saint Andrews research fellow Indranil Banik told New Scientist. "This asymmetry does make more sense in MOND, but in any individual cluster there could be other effects that are causing it — it’s a bit unlikely that would happen in all of them, though."

The researchers are now trying to hone in on an even more accurate picture by stepping up the accuracy of their simulations, which could either support their MOND theory — or conclude that Newton was, in fact, correct the first time around.

More on star clusters: Something Is Ripping Apart the Nearest Star Cluster to Earth

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There's Something Strange About How These Stars Are Moving, Scientists Say

Core Dump

Scientists studying a group of stars made an astonishing but "serendipitous" discovery when they realized that Gamma Columbae, a fairly average celestial body, might actually be the "stripped pulsating core of a massive star," according to a study published this week in Nature Astronomy.

If true, that means Gamma Columbae is missing the envelope, or vast shroud of gas, that hides a star's nuclear fusion powered core.

What caused the stripping of this atmospheric envelope is not definitively known, but the scientists posit that Gamma Columbae running out of hydrogen could've caused its envelope to expand and swallow up a nearby star, likely its binary partner. But in the middle of that relatively common process, something appears to have horrifically gone wrong and ejected the envelope — and possibly even led to the two stars merging.

Naked Core

Before the disaster, the scientists believe Gamma Columbae could have been up to 12 times the mass of our Sun. Now, it's a comparatively meager 5 stellar masses.

Although a naked stellar core missing its envelope has been theorized to exist, it's never been observed in a star this size.

"Having a naked stellar core of such a mass is unique so far," said study co-author Norbert Pryzbilla, head of the Institute for Astro- and Particle Physics at the University of Innsbruck, in an interview with Vice.

Astronomers had an idea of what the cores of massive and low mass stars looked like, Pryzbilla continued, but there wasn't "much evidence" for cores of masses in between.

Star Power

It's an exceedingly rare find because the star is in a "a short-lived post-stripping structural re-adjustment phase" that will only last 10,000 years, according to the study.

That's "long for us humans but in astronomical timescales, very, very short," Przybilla told Vice. "It will always stay as a peculiar object."

The opportunity to study such a rarely exposed stellar core could provide scientists an invaluable look into the evolution of binary star systems. And whatever astronomers learn from the star, it's a fascinating glimpse at stellar destruction at a nearly incomprehensible scale.

More on stars: Black Hole Spotted Burping Up Material Years After Eating a Star

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Scientists Spot "Stripped, Pulsating Core" of Star Caused By Horrific Accident

Fill 'Er Up

A team of Chinese researchers say they managed to convert actual lunar regolith samples into a source of rocket fuel and oxygen — a potential gamechanger for future space explorers hoping to make use of in-situ resources to fuel up for their return journey.

The researchers found that the lunar soil samples can act as a catalyst to convert carbon dioxide and water from astronauts' bodies and environment into methane and oxygen, as detailed in a paper published in the National Science Review.

"In situ resource utilization of lunar soil to achieve extraterrestrial fuel and oxygen production is vital for the human to carry out Moon exploitation missions," lead author Yujie Xiong said in a new statement about the work. "Considering that there are limited human resources at extraterrestrial sites, we proposed to employ the robotic system to perform the whole electrocatalytic CO2 conversion system setup."

That means we could have a much better shot at carrying out longer duration explorations of the lunar surface in the near future.

Set It, Forget It

According to the paper, which builds on previous research suggesting lunar soil can generate oxygen and fuel, this process can be completed using uncrewed systems, even in the absence of astronauts.

In an experiment, the team used samples from China's Chang'e-5 mission, which landed in Inner Mongolia back in December 2020 — the first lunar soil returned to Earth since 1976.

The Moon soil effectively acted as a catalyst, enabling the electrocatalytic conversion of carbon dioxide into methane and oxygen.

"No significant difference can be observed between the manned and unmanned systems, which further suggests the high possibility of imitating our proposed system in extraterrestrial sites and proves the feasibility of further optimizing catalyst recipes on the Moon," the researchers conclude in their paper.

Liquified

But there's one big hurdle to still overcome: liquifying carbon dioxide is anything but easy given the Moon's frosty atmosphere, as condensing the gas requires a significant amount of heat, as New Scientist reported earlier this year.

Still, it's a tantalizing prospect: an autonomous machine chugging away, pumping out oxygen and fuel for future visitors. But for now, it's not much more than a proof of concept.

READ MORE: Scientists investigate using lunar soils to sustainably supply oxygen and fuels on the moon [Science China Press]

More on lunar soil: Bad News! The Plants Grown in Moon Soil Turned Out Wretched

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Scientists Use Actual Lunar Soil Sample to Create Rocket Fuel

A team of neuroscientists at the University of Wisconsin claim to have found a way to control how high mice can get on a given amount of cocaine.

And don't worry — while that may sound like a particularly frivolous plot concocted by a team of evil scientists, the goal of the research is well-meaning.

The team, led by University of Wisconsin neuroscientist Santiago Cuesta, was investigating how the gut microbiome can influence how mice and humans react to ingesting the drug.

The research, detailed in a new paper published this week in the journal Cell Host & Microbe, sheds light on a vicious feedback loop that could explain cases of substance abuse disorders — and possibly lay the groundwork for future therapeutic treatments.

In a number of experiments on mice, the researchers found that cocaine was linked to the growth of common gut bacteria, which feed on glycine, a chemical that facilitates basic brain functions.

The lower the levels of glycine in the brain, the more the mice reacted to the cocaine, exhibiting abnormal behaviors.

To test the theory, the scientists injected the mice with a genetically modified amino acid which cannot break down glycine. As a result, the behavior of mice returned to normal levels.

In other words, the amino acid could curb cocaine addiction-like behaviors — at least in animal models.

"The gut bacteria are consuming all of the glycine and the levels are decreasing systemically and in the brain," said Vanessa Sperandio, senior author, and microbiologist from the University of Wisconsin, in a statement. "It seems changing glycine overall is impacting the glutamatergic synapses that make the animals more prone to develop addiction."

It's an unorthodox approach to treating addiction, but could be intriguing — if it works in people, that is.

"Usually, for neuroscience behaviors, people are not thinking about controlling the microbiota, and microbiota studies usually don't measure behaviors, but here we show they’re connected," Cuesta added. "Our microbiome can actually modulate psychiatric or brain-related behaviors."

In short, their research could lead to new ways of treating various psychiatric disorders such as substance use by adjusting the gut microbiome and not making changes to the brain chemistry.

"I think the bridging of these communities is what's going to move the field forward, advancing beyond correlations towards causations for the different types of psychiatric disorders," Sperandio argued.

READ MORE: How gut bacteria influence the effects of cocaine in mice [Cell Press]

More on addiction: Study: Magic Mushrooms Helped 83% of People Cut Excessive Drinking

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Scientists Found a Way to Control How High Mice Got on Cocaine

Cat Burglar

Cats are known for not really minding their own business, getting their furry paws on just about anything they can.

And it turns out, this makes them effective vectors for DNA evidence, according to a study published last month in the journal Forensic Science International: Genetic Supplement Series.

Researchers collaborating with the Victoria Police Forensic Services Department in Australia found detectable human DNA in 80 percent of the samples collected from 20 pet cats, with 70 percent of the samples strong enough that they could be linked to a person of interest in a crime scene investigation.

"Collection of human DNA needs to become very important in crime scene investigations, but there is a lack of data on companion animals such as cats and dogs in their relationship to human DNA transfer," said study lead author Heidi Monkman, a forensic scientist at Flinders University, in a statement.

"These companion animals can be highly relevant in assessing the presence and activities of the inhabitants of the household, or any recent visitors to the scene."

Here Kitty

One possible takeaway is that cats — and other companion pets like dogs — could be harboring DNA that could help solve a case.

The bigger issue, though, is that pets could introduce foreign DNA that muddles a crime scene, possibly leading to an innocent person being implicated. A pet could be carrying the DNA of a complete stranger, or it might bring the DNA of its owner into a crime scene that they had nothing to do with.

Monkman's colleague and co-author of the paper, Maria Goray, is an experienced crime scene investigator and an expert in DNA transfer. She believes their findings could help clear up how pets might tamper a crime scene by carrying outside DNA.

"Are these DNA findings a result of a criminal activity or could they have been transferred and deposited at the scene via a pet?" Goray asked.

It's a question worth asking — especially because innocent people have been jailed off botched DNA science far too often.

More on DNA evidence: Cops Upload Image of Suspect Generated From DNA, Then Delete After Mass Criticism

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Cats May Be Tampering With Crime Scenes, Scientists Say

Chinese scientists are reportedly planning to send monkeys to its new Tiangong space station for experiments that will involve the animals mating and potentially reproducing, the South China Morning Post reports.

It's a fascinating and potentially controversial experiment that could have major implications for our efforts to colonize space: can mammals, let alone humans, successfully reproduce beyond the Earth?

According to the report, the experiment would take place in the station's largest capsule, called Wentian, inside two biological test cabinets that can be expanded.

After examining the behavior of smaller creatures, "some studies involving mice and macaques will be carried out to see how they grow or even reproduce in space," Zhang Lu, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, said during a speech posted to social media earlier this week, as quoted by the SCMP.

"These experiments will help improve our understanding of an organism’s adaptation to microgravity and other space environments," he added.

Some simpler organisms, including nematodes and Japanese rice fish, have been observed reproducing in space.

But more complex life forms have struggled. In 2014, a Russian experiment to see whether geckos could produce offspring in space failed when all the critters died.

And the failure rate for mammals, so far, has been total. Soviet Union scientists got mice to mate during a space flight in 1979, but none of them gave birth after being returned to Earth.

In other words, getting monkeys to reproduce on board a space station will be anything but easy. For one, just dealing with living creatures in space can pose immense challenges. The astronauts will "need to feed them and deal with the waste," Kehkooi Kee, a professor with the school of medicine at Tsinghua University, told the SCMP.

Then there's the fact that astronauts will have to keep the macaques happy and comfortable, something that experts say will be challenging since long term confinement in the spartan environments of space habitats could cause immense stress for the simians.

And even if astronauts successfully set the mood for the monkeys, the physics of sex in space are predicted to be challenging.

"Firstly, just staying in close contact with each other under zero gravity is hard," Adam Watkins, an associate professor of reproductive physiology at University of Nottingham, wrote in a 2020 open letter highlighted by the SCMP. "Secondly, as astronauts experience lower blood pressure while in space, maintaining erections and arousal are more problematic than here on Earth."

With its new space station in nearly full operation, China isn't shying away from asking some big questions — but whether these experiments will play out as expected is anything but certain.

READ MORE: Chinese scientists plan monkey reproduction experiment in space station [South China Morning Post]

More on sex in space: Scientists Say We Really Have to Talk About Boning in Space

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China Plans to Send Monkeys to Space Station to Have Sex With Each Other

Advertisers are fleeing Twitter in droves now that Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has taken over control.

Ever since officially closing the $44 billion deal, Musk has been busy gutting the company's executive suite and dissolving its board. Senior executives, as well as Twitter's advertising chief Sarah Personette, have departed as well.

After all, Musk has been very clear about his disdain for advertising for years now.

The resulting uncertainty has advertisers spooked — major advertising holding company IPG has already advised clients to pull out temporarily — and the billionaire CEO is in serious damage mode.

Now, Reuters reports, Musk is spending most of this week meeting with advertisers in New York, trying to reassure them that Twitter won't turn into a "free-for-all hellscape."

According to one of Reuters' sources, the meetings have been "very productive" — but plenty of other marketers are far from satisfied.

Advertisers are reportedly grilling Musk over his plans to address the rampant misinformation being spread on the platform, a trend that Musk himself has been actively contributing to since the acquisition.

And if he's succeeding in ameliorating advertisers in private, he's antagonizing them publicly. On Wednesday, Musk posted a poll asking users whether advertisers should support either "freedom of speech," or "political 'correctness'" — a type of false dichotomy that echoes the rhetoric of far-right conspiracy theorists and conservative pundits.

"Those type of provocations are not helping to calm the waters," an unnamed media buyer told Reuters.

Some are going public with the same sentiment.

"Unless Elon hires new leaders committed to keeping this 'free' platform safe from hate speech, it's not a platform brands can/should advertise on," Allie Wassum, global media director for the Nike-owned shoe brand Jordan, wrote in a LinkedIn post.

So far, Musk's plans for the social media platform remain strikingly muddy. In addition to the behind-the-scenes advertising plays, he's also announced that users will have to pay to retain their verification badge, though he's engaged in a comically public negotiation as to what the cost might be.

He's also hinted that previously banned users — former US president Donald Trump chief among them — might eventually get a chance to return, but only once "we have a clear process for doing so, which will take at least a few more weeks."

The move was seen by many as a way to wait out the impending midterm elections. After all, Twitter has played a huge role in disseminating misinformation and swaying elections in the past.

While advertisers are running for the hills, to Musk advertising is clearly only a small part of the picture — even though historically, social giants like Twitter have struggled to diversify their revenue sources much beyond display ads.

Musk nodded to that reality in a vague open letter posted last week.

"Low relevancy ads are spam, but highly relevant ads are actually content!" he wrote in the note, addressed to "Twitter advertisers."

Big picture, Twitter's operations are in free fall right now and Musk has yet to provide advertisers with a cohesive plan to pick up the pieces.

While he's hinted at the creation of a new content moderation council made up of both "people from all viewpoints" and "wildly divergent views," advertisers are clearly going to be thinking twice about continuing their business with Twitter.

With or without advertising, Twitter's finances are reportedly in a very deep hole. The billions of dollars Musk had to borrow to finance his mega acquisition will cost Twitter around $1 billion a year in interest alone.

The company also wasn't anywhere near profitable before Musk took over, losing hundreds of millions of dollars in a single quarter.

Whether that picture will change any time soon is as unclear as ever, especially in the face of a wintry economy.

But, of course, Musk has proved his critics wrong before. So anything's possible.

READ MORE: Advertisers begin to grill Elon Musk over Twitter 'free-for-all' [Reuters]

More on the saga: Elon Musk Pulling Engineers From Tesla Autopilot to Work on Twitter

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Elon Musk Meeting With Advertisers, Begging Them Not to Leave Twitter

Spying @ Home

Ever since the COVID-19 pandemic drove a wave of working from home, companies have been relentless in their efforts to digitally police and spy on remote employees by using what's known as "bossware." That's the pejorative name for software that tracks the websites an employee visits, screenshots their computer screens, and even records their faces and voices.

And now, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), an agency of the federal government, is looking to intervene.

"Close, constant surveillance and management through electronic means threaten employees' basic ability to exercise their rights," said NLRB general counsel Jennifer Abruzzo, in a Monday memo. "I plan to urge the Board to apply the Act to protect employees, to the greatest extent possible, from intrusive or abusive electronic monitoring and automated management practices."

Undoing Unions

In particular, Abruzzo is worried about how bossware could infringe on workers' rights to unionize. It's not hard to imagine how such invasive surveillance could be used to bust unionization. Even if the technology isn't explicitly deployed to impede organization efforts, the ominous presence of the surveillance on its own can be a looming deterrent, which Abruzzo argues is illegal.

And now is the perfect moment for the NLRB to step in. The use and abuse of worker surveillance tech in general — not just bossware — has been "growing by the minute," Mark Gaston Pearce, executive director of the Workers' Rights Institute at Georgetown Law School, told CBS.

"Employers are embracing technology because technology helps them run a more efficient business," Gaston explained. "… What comes with that is monitoring a lot of things that employers have no business doing."

Overbearing Overlord

In some ways, surveillance tech like bossware can be worse than having a nosy, actual human boss. Generally speaking, in a physical workplace employees have an understanding of how much privacy they have (unless they work at a place like Amazon or Walmart, that is).

But when bossware spies on you, who knows how much information an employer could be gathering — or even when they're looking in. And if it surveils an employee's personal computer, which more often than not contains plenty of personal information that a boss has no business seeing, that's especially invasive.

Which is why Abruzzo is pushing to require employers to disclose exactly how much they're tracking.

It's a stern message from the NLRB, but at the end of the day, it's just a memo. We'll have to wait and see how enforcing it pans out.

More on surveillance: Casinos to Use Facial Recognition to Keep "Problem Gamblers" Away

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US Gov to Crack Down on "Bossware" That Spies On Employees' Computers

Droning On

Someone thinks it's a great idea to fly 500 drones over New York City to create a huge ad in the sky on Thursday evening. Because New Yorkers certainly don't have any historical reason to mistrust unknown aircraft over their skyline, right?

As Gothamist reports, the drone swarm is part of a "surreal takeover of New York City’s skyline" on behalf of — we shit you not — the mobile game Candy Crush.

Fernanda Romano, Candy Crush's chief marketing officer, told Gothamist that the stunt will "turn the sky into the largest screen on the planet" using the small, light-up drones.

Though this is not the first time the Manhattan skyline has been used as ad space — that distinction goes to the National Basketball Association and State Farm, which did a similar stunt this summer during the NBA draft — local lawmakers are ticked off about it nonetheless.

"I think it’s outrageous to be spoiling our city’s skyline for private profit," Brad Hoylman, a state senator that represents Manhattan's West Side in the NY Legislature, told the local news site. "It’s offensive to New Yorkers, to our local laws, to public safety, and to wildlife."

Freak Out

Indeed, as the NYC Audubon Society noted in a tweet, the Candy Crush crapshoot "could disrupt the flight patterns of thousands of birds flying through NYC, leading to collisions with buildings" as they migrate.

Beyond the harm this will do to birds and the annoyance it will undoubtedly cause the famously-grumpy people of New York, this stunt is also going down with very little warning, considering that Gothamist is one of the only news outlets even reporting on it ahead of time.

While most viewers will hopefully be able to figure out what's going on pretty quickly, the concept of seeing unknown aircraft above the skyline is a little too reminiscent of 9/11 for comfort — and if Candy Crush took that into consideration, they haven't let on.

So here's hoping this event shocks and awes Thursday night city-goers in a good way, and not in the way that makes them panic.

More drone warfare: Russia Accused of Pelting Ukraine Capital With "Kamikaze" Drones

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Huge Drone Swarm to Form Giant Advertisement Over NYC Skyline

Observatory Offline

The Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) Observatory in Chile has been hit with a cyberattack that has taken its website offline and forced it to suspend all observations, authorities there said.

Even email services were limited in the aftermath, illustrating the broad impact of the hack.

Nested high up on a plateau in the Chilean Andes at over 16,000 feet above sea level, ALMA is one of the most powerful and advanced radio telescopes in the world. Notably, ALMA helped take the first image of a black hole in 2019, in a collaborative effort that linked radio observatories worldwide into forming the Event Horizon Telescope.

Thankfully, ALMA's impressive arsenal of 66 high-precision antennas, each nearly 40 feet in diameter, was not compromised, the observatory said, nor was any of the scientific data those instruments collected.

In High Places

What makes ALMA so invaluable is its specialty in observing the light of the cooler substances of the cosmos, namely gas and dust. That makes ALMA a prime candidate for documenting the fascinating formations of planets and stars when they first emerge amidst clouds of gas.

Since going fully operational in 2013, it's become the largest ground-based astronomical project in the world, according to the European Southern Observatory, ALMA's primary operators.

So ALMA going offline is a distressing development, especially to the thousands of astronomers worldwide that rely on its observations and the some 300 experts working onsite. Getting it up and running is obviously a top priority, but the observatory said in a followup tweet that "it is not yet possible to estimate a date for a return to regular activities."

As of now, there's no information available on who the hackers were, or exactly how they conducted the attack. Their motivations, too, remain a mystery.

More on ALMA: Astronomers Think They Found the Youngest Planet in the Galaxy

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Hackers Just Took Down One of the World's Most Advanced Telescopes

Jeff Bezos' former housekeeper is suing the Amazon founder for workplace discrimination that she says forced her to literally climb out out the window of his house to use the bathroom.

In the suit, filed this week in a Washington state court, the former housekeeper claimed that she and Bezos' other household staff were not provided with legally-mandated eating or restroom breaks, and that because there was no "readily accessible bathroom" for them to use, they had to clamber out a laundry room window to get to one.

In the complaint, lawyers for the ex-housekeeper, who is described as having worked for wealthy families for nearly 20 years, wrote that household staff were initially allowed to use a small bathroom in the security room of Bezos' main house, but "this soon stopped... because it was decided that housekeepers using the bathroom was a breach of security protocol."

The suit also alleges that housekeepers in the billionaire's employ "frequently developed Urinary Tract Infections" that they believed was related to not being able to use the bathroom when they needed to at work.

"There was no breakroom for the housekeepers," the complaint adds. "Even though Plaintiff worked 10, 12, and sometimes 14 hours a day, there was no designated area for her to sit down and rest."

The housekeeper — who, like almost all of her coworkers, is Latino — was allegedly not aware that she was entitled to breaks for lunch or rest, and was only able to have a lunch break when Bezos or his family were not on the premises, the lawsuit alleges.

The Washington Post owner has denied his former housekeeper's claims of discrimination through an attorney.

"We have investigated the claims, and they lack merit," Harry Korrell, a Bezos attorney, told Insider of the suit. "[The former employee] made over six figures annually and was the lead housekeeper."

He added that the former housekeeper "was responsible for her own break and meal times, and there were several bathrooms and breakrooms available to her and other staff."

"The evidence will show that [the former housekeeper] was terminated for performance reasons," he continued. "She initially demanded over $9M, and when the company refused, she decided to file this suit."

As the suit was just filed and may well end in a settlement, it'll likely be a long time, if ever, before we find out what really happened at Bezos' house — but if we do, it'll be a fascinating peek behind the curtain at the home life of one of the world's most powerful and wealthy men.

More on billionaires: Tesla Morale Low As Workers Still Don't Have Desks, Face Increased Attendance Surveillance

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Jeff Bezos' Housekeeper Says She Had to Climb Out the Window to Use the Bathroom

Latest Feud

Another day, another Elon Musk feud on Twitter — except now, he's the owner of the social network, and he's beefing with a sitting member of Congress.

The whole thing started innocently enough earlier this week, when firebrand Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY, and better known by her initials, "AOC") subtweeted the website's new owner.

"Lmao at a billionaire earnestly trying to sell people on the idea that 'free speech' is actually a $8/mo subscription plan," the New York Democratic Socialist tweeted in a post that, upon Futurism's perusal, appeared to load only half the time.

Sweat Equity

Not one to be shown up, Musk later posted a screenshot of an AOC-branded sweatshirt from the congressperson's website, with its $58 price tag circled and an emoji belying the billionaire's alleged affront at the price.

In response, Ocasio-Cortez said she was proud her sweatshirts were made by union labor, and that the proceeds from their sales were going to fund educational support for needy kids. She later dug in further, noting that her account was "conveniently" not working and joking that Musk couldn't buy his way "out of insecurity."

Yo @elonmusk while I have your attention, why should people pay $8 just for their app to get bricked when they say something you don’t like?

This is what my app has looked like ever since my tweet upset you yesterday. What’s good? Doesn’t seem very free speechy to me pic.twitter.com/e3hcZ7T9up

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) November 3, 2022

Bricked

To be clear, any suggestion that Musk personally had anything to do with any Twitter glitches on AOC's part would seem ludicrously petty. But then again, this is a guy who once hired a private detective to investigate a random critic.

Occam's razor, though, suggests that it was probably AOC's mega-viral tweet that broke the site's notoriously dodgy infrastructure. Of course, that's not a ringing endorsement of the site that Musk just acquired for the colossal sum of $44 billion.

More on Twitter: Twitter Working on Plan to Charge Users to Watch Videos

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AOC Says Her Twitter Account Broke After She Made Fun of Elon Musk

Spaceplane Buddy

After launching into orbit roughly three months ago, China's top-secret spaceplane has released a mysterious object, which is now circling the Earth behind it, SpaceNews reports.

There's very little we know about China's "reusable experimental spacecraft," except that it launched atop a Long March 2F rocket back in August. We don't know its purpose, what it looks like, or what cargo it was carrying during launch — but it's an intriguing development, nonetheless, for China's reusable launch platform.

Mysterious Object

The object was released between October 24 and October 31, according to tracking data being analyzed by the US Space Force's 18th pace Defense Squadron.

We can only hazard a guess as to what the mysterious object's purpose is. According to Harvard astronomer and space tracker Jonathan McDowell, it "may be a service module, possibly indicating an upcoming deorbit burn."

Based on the size and weight of payloads Long March rockets usually carry, China's mysterious spaceplane is likely similar to the Air Force's X-37B spaceplane, which is similarly shrouded in mystery and currently on its sixth mission.

We also don't know when the Chinese model will make its return back to Earth, but given recent activity at the Lop Nur base in Xinjiang suggests, it may land there in the near future, according to the report.

It's a puzzling new development for China's secretive spacecraft — but it does raise the possibility of a renewed interest in spaceplanes, a potentially affordable and reusable way to launch payloads into orbit.

More on the spaceplane: China Launches Mysterious "Reusable Test" Spacecraft

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Chinese Spaceplane Releases Mystery Object Into Orbit

You know that "research" going around saying humans are going to evolve to have hunchbacks and claws because of the way we use our smartphones? Though our posture could certainly use some work, you'll be glad to know that it's just lazy spam intended to juice search engine results.

Let's back up. Today the Daily Mail published a viral story about "how humans may look in the year 3000." Among its predictions: hunched backs, clawed hands, a second eyelid, a thicker skull and a smaller brain.

Sure, that's fascinating! The only problem? The Mail's only source is a post published a year ago by the renowned scientists at... uh... TollFreeForwarding.com, a site that sells, as its name suggests, virtual phone numbers.

If the idea that phone salespeople are purporting to be making predictions about human evolution didn't tip you off, this "research" doesn't seem very scientific at all. Instead, it more closely resembles what it actually is — a blog post written by some poor grunt, intended to get backlinks from sites like the Mail that'll juice TollFreeForwarding's position in search engine results.

To get those delicious backlinks, the top minds at TollFreeForwarding leveraged renders of a "future human" by a 3D model artist. The result of these efforts is "Mindy," a creepy-looking hunchback in black skinny jeans (which is how you can tell she's from a different era).

Grotesque model reveals what humans could look like in the year 3000 due to our reliance on technology

Full story: https://t.co/vQzyMZPNBv pic.twitter.com/vqBuYOBrcg

— Daily Mail Online (@MailOnline) November 3, 2022

"To fully realize the impact everyday tech has on us, we sourced scientific research and expert opinion on the subject," the TollFreeForwarding post reads, "before working with a 3D designer to create a future human whose body has physically changed due to consistent use of smartphones, laptops, and other tech."

Its sources, though, are dubious. Its authority on spinal development, for instance, is a "health and wellness expert" at a site that sells massage lotion. His highest academic achievement? A business degree.

We could go on and on about TollFreeForwarding's dismal sourcing — some of which looks suspiciously like even more SEO spam for entirely different clients — but you get the idea.

It's probably not surprising that the this gambit for clicks took off among dingbats on Twitter. What is somewhat disappointing is that it ended up on StudyFinds, a generally reliable blog about academic research. This time, though, for inscrutable reasons it treated this egregious SEO spam as a legitimate scientific study.

The site's readers, though, were quick to call it out, leading to a comically enormous editor's note appended to the story.

"Our content is intended to stir debate and conversation, and we always encourage our readers to discuss why or why not they agree with the findings," it reads in part. "If you heavily disagree with a report — please debunk to your delight in the comments below."

You heard them! Get debunking, people.

More conspiracy theories: If You Think Joe Rogan Is Credible, This Bizarre Clip of Him Yelling at a Scientist Will Probably Change Your Mind

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That "Research" About How Smartphones Are Causing Deformed Human Bodies Is SEO Spam, You Idiots

We live in a moment that is as critical for freedom as the American Revolution, the American Civil War, or the days following Pearl Harbor. In each of those moments, America moved the cause of freedom forward. In the Revolution, we declared our independence from the greatest empire of the day, fought for and won that independence, and then went on to establish a constitution that still gives us liberty under law more than two hundred years later. In the Civil War, we removed the great moral wrong of slavery. After Pearl Harbor, we shouldered the burden of World War II and the subsequent Cold War.

Sept. 11 represents a time just as critical in the history of the freedom. As we judge the generations of the American Revolution, the Civil War, or Pearl Harbor by their heroic response, so we shall be judged. We are engaged in what I believe is a noble crusade to bring freedom to the world. But that crusade is faltering now, in part because we have failed to ask some very fundamental questions.

This essay is intended to ask the most fundamental of those questions: Is freedom a universal human value, which all people in all times and places desire?

Our foreign policy since the time of Woodrow Wilson has been based in the belief that freedom is a universal value, one that is wanted by all people in all times. But why, if freedom is a universal value, has the history of the world been one of tyranny, misery, and oppression?

Socrates taught that our first task in any discussion is to define our terms. Thus, the starting point here is identifying what we mean by freedom. We never disagree, Socrates tells us, about empirical questions; it is about values that we disagree. No value is more charged with meaning than that of freedom.

If we carefully examine the ideal and reality of freedom throughout the ages, we come to the conclusion that what we call freedom is, in fact, an ideal that consists of three component ideals: (1) national freedom; (2) political freedom; and (3) individual freedom.

National freedom is freedom from foreign control. This is the most basic concept of freedom. It is the desire of a nation, ethnic group, or a tribe to rule itself. It is national self-determination.

Political freedom is the freedom to vote, hold office, and pass laws. It is the ideal of consent of the governed.

Individual freedom is a complex of values. In its most basic form individual freedom is the freedom to live as you choose as long as you harm no one else, Each nation, each epoch in history, perhaps each individual, may define this ideal of individual freedom in different terms. In its noblest of expressions, individual freedom is enshrined in our Bill of Rights. It is freedom of conscience, freedom of speech, economic freedom, and freedom to choose your life style.

In the United States, we tend to assume that these three ideals of freedom always go together. That is wrong. History proves that these three component ideals of freedom in no way must be mutually inclusive.

You can have national freedom without political or individual freedom; Iraq under Saddam Hussein and North Korea are examples. In fact, this national freedom, this desire for independence, is the most basic of all human freedoms. It has frequently been the justification for some of the most terrible tyrannies in history: Nazi Germany had national freedom but denied individual and political freedom in the name of this national freedom.

It is quite possible to have political and national freedom but not individual freedom. Ancient Sparta had national and political freedom, but none of the individual freedoms we expect today.

The Roman Empire represents two centuries that brought peace and prosperity to the world by extinguishing national and political freedom, but in which individual freedom flourished as it never had.

From the Declaration of Independence to the First World War, the history of our own country provides a dramatic example of the separation of these three component ideals of freedom. After 1776, the United States had national freedom. Adult white males also had political and individual freedom. White women had a considerable degree of individual freedom but no political liberty until 1920 and the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment. Until after the Civil War, African-Americans possessed neither political nor individual freedom. In 1857 the Supreme Court formally ruled that African-Americans did not have the right to individual or political freedom. The soldiers of the Confederacy fought valiantly for their political, individual, and national freedom while defending their right to deny individual and political liberty to a considerable proportion of their population.

Thus, clearly, throughout history, these three components ideals of freedom have not been mutually inclusive.

Had we learned this lesson of history, Americans might have avoided crucial mistakes in our recent foreign policy in the Middle East.

History demonstrates that one of the most basic human feelings is the desire for national freedom. You may hate your government, but if someone invades you, you may very well fight in defense of your country. Napoleon learned this in Spain. History should have taught us to be skeptical of the claim that we would be welcomed as liberators in Iraq.

A second lesson of history we should have pondered is that freedom is not a universal value. Great civilizations have risen and fallen without any clear concept of freedom. Egyptthe civilization that built the pyramids, that created astronomy and medicine, did not even have a word for freedom. Everything was under the power of the pharaoh, who was god on earth. Ancient Mesopotamia had a word for freedom, but that word had the connotation of liberties. It was something that the all-powerful king gave to you, like exemption from taxes, and that he could also capriciously take away from you.

In fact, it can be argued that the Middle East, from the time of the pyramids down until today, has had no real concept of freedom.

Russia from the time of Rurik, the first Viking chieftain of Russia in the ninth century, down to Vladimir Putin, has never developed clear ideas of political and individual freedom. Thus we should not have been surprised when the Russian Revolution led not to freedom but to Stalin and one of the bloodiest despotisms in history.

China has no tradition of political or individual freedom. The noble teachings of Confucius are all about order, not freedom.

In fact, the very beginning of civilizations in the Middle East around 3000 BCE and in China around 1700 BCE represented the choice of security over freedom. Civilization began with the decision to give up any freedom in order to have the security of a well regulated economy under a king. Time and again throughout history people have chosen the perceived benefits of security over the awesome responsibilities of freedom.

History thus teaches that freedom is not a universal value. Our Founders knew and acted upon the lessons of history. The Founders, unlike us, thought historically. They used the lessons of the past to make decisions in the present and to plan for the future. They understood that tyranny and the lust for power, not freedom, is the great motivating force of human action and of history. But the Founders also believed that the United States could chart a unique course in history

Our country does have a unique legacy of freedom. That is both a cause for hope and a caution as to whether our unique ideals of freedom can be transplanted to the rest of the world. For in the U.S. we have achieved a unique balance of national, political, and individual freedom.

We have never been conquered; we simply cannot imagine what it would be to be under the rule of a foreigner. Our experience is very different from that of France, for example, or Germany.

We take political freedom for granted. We have regular elections no matter what the circumstances. In 1864, in the midst of the greatest war in our history, we held elections. The Europeans wondered after 9/11 what would happen to America; we went ahead with another election. In a way it is a good thing we are so secure in this freedom that we take it for granted. With that comes our deep love of the Constitution. Of course, Americans may not know what is in the Constitution, but they know it is good and resent any effort to tamper with it.

As to individual freedom, where could one have so much of it, including the basic freedom to create a better life for yourself and your children? People clamor to get into America, because individual freedom opens up a whole new world.

So how did we come to this unique legacy of freedom? Again, history is our guide. Our American legacy of freedom is the product of a unique confluence of five historical currents.

First, there is the legacy of the Old Testament, the idea that we are a nation chosen by God to bear the ark of the liberties to the world. Our Founders believed that deeply. Abraham Lincoln believed it deeply. Franklin Roosevelt believed it.

The second current comes from classical Greece and Rome. The legacy of Greece and Rome is the very basic one of self-government, consent of the governed. The kings of Babylon were chosen by God, Saul was chosen by God. The pharaoh was God on earth. But in Greece and Rome, men said We are free to govern ourselves under laws that we give ourselves.

Thirdly, Christianity took the idea of Natural Law from Greece and Rome and turned it into the belief that all men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The freedom that for the Greeks and Romans had been limited to the citizens of Athens or Rome now became a universal proclamation under Christianity.

Fourthly, England gave us the notion that government is under the law, no matter how powerful that government is. In the Watergate hearings, Sen. Herman Talmadge (D-Ga.) quoted the old saying that the wind and rain might enter the cottage of a poor Englishman, but the king in all his majesty may not. The law governs the king himself, and our Congress, senators, and president. As Harry Truman said, any time an American president gets too big for his britches, the people put him back in his place.

Fifthly, there is the contribution of the frontier. From the very beginning, America has been about the frontier. It is what led men and women to Jamestown and Plymouth. The frontier was the vast, seemingly endless land stretching before us. The frontier meant equality of opportunity. Even the best ideals of Greece or Rome or England could never flourish, because they were always cramped. But here there was land and the ability to start over again. This mattered more than all the ancient hatreds and class frictions that had existed under the old world. We cannot understand why Bosnians, Serbs, and Croats speak the same language but kill each other. Their hatreds have been festering for centuries, but here they pass away. That has been the unique gift of the frontier.

The existence of these elements in other nations and civilizations only underscores the uniqueness of the American experience of freedom. Russia has the tradition of Greece and Rome, Christianity, the tradition of the Old Testament; and it has a frontier. But it lacks that English sense of government under the law. So the frontier in Russia becomes the home of the gulag. Latin America has the tradition of Christianity and the Old Testament, and of Greece and Rome, and of the frontier. But Spain lacked the powerful English concept that government is under the law. Thus Latin America, despite its industrious and intelligent population and its natural resources, has never developed a stable basis for political and individual freedom.

Our heritage of freedom has been forged in war and hardship as well as in prosperity. Our national independence was proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence. Name another nation in history founded on principles. An Italian or German will say you are an Italian or German because you speak Italian or German. Traditionally, you were born an Englishman; you were geographical accident. But in America we have said from the start that everyone can come here from wherever they wish. They can speak whatever language is their mother tongue and practice whatever religion they want. They become an American by adopting our principles.

The principles proclaimed in 1776 are the noblest of all principles: we hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with the unalienable right of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

The proclamation of these ideals in the Declaration of Independence is based on the belief in absolute right and absolute wrong. You can deny that today. We seem to have a society that believes there is no such thing as truth. Ethics is all a matter of circumstances. But the Founders believed in eternal truths, valid in all places and all times. And they believed that governments are instituted among men to achieve those goals. That is the purpose of government. And if a government does not fulfill those goals, you have not only the right but the duty to overthrow it.

The absolute truths of the Declaration of Independence are founded on a belief in God. God appears four times in the Declaration of Independence: Natures God, the Creator, Supreme Judge of the world, Divine Providence.

Thus our national freedom is founded on absolute truth and upon a belief in God.

As the Declaration of Independence is the charter of our national freedom, so the Constitution is our charter of political freedom.

When that constitution was brought forth in Philadelphia, we were thirteen straggling republics along the eastern seaboard. If Benjamin Franklin or George Washington wanted to go somewhere, they went in the same way Cicero or Caesar did: they walked, rode, or sailed. If they wanted to communicate, they did it the same way Caesar or Cicero did. George Washington received inferior medical care to what a Roman gladiator got in the first century CE. And yet that same constitution gives us liberty under law and prosperity in a world of technology that Benjamin Franklin could not even have imagined and when we are superpower of the world. We should never take this extraordinary achievement for granted.

The American people in their wisdom would not ratify this constitution without the promise of a bill of rights. It seems to us extraordinary today that the first Congress kept its promise; and in short order set down and produced the Bill of Rights, which still guarantees these fundamental freedoms of individual liberty.

But there was still slavery, written into the Constitution. God is not mentioned once in the Constitution, but slavery was made the law of the land. To remove that wrong of slavery we fought the bloodiest war in our history, in which 623,026 Americans died. It produced men of great honor and integrity on both sides. It was finally resolved at Gettysburg.

When Abraham Lincoln went to Gettysburg to redefine our mission, he started with the Declaration of Independence. Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. It was unique because it was dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. In one sentence he told Americans why they were fighting the war, to see whether any nation so conceived and dedicated could long endure. In all the rhetoric we had about Vietnam and all that we have heard about Iraq, we have not been told so simply why we were at war.

Lincoln then went on to state that this civil war was a challenge laid upon this nation by God. The more Lincoln grappled with why this terrible war had come, the more convinced he had become that it was sent by God to punish us for the fundamental wrong of slavery. He told Americans that we must resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain and that this nation under God should have a new birth of freedom. And that government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth.

So this war that had cost so many lives was resolved in a way that no other nation would have. The Confederates simply pledged their word not to take up arms and to go home. The reconciliation began. I think that too is unique in history.

With the Civil War we see the growth of democracy, the move towards extending the franchise to women, 18 year olds. They all become part of this political freedom.

This nation has continued in a unique course of freedom. In World War II we fought and won the war in the name of democratic freedom. We could have withdrawn the way we did after World War I. But we recognized that isolationism had been a mistake. So we shouldered the burden of the Cold War.

Now we have been called again, and the question is, will we find the leadership to tell us why this great challenge is there? Will we find the will to resolve this struggle? Will we find the understanding among ourselves to see the great task that, as Lincoln said, is still before us?

I speak to you not only the legacy of America, but of destiny. I believe that no people in history have ever been more magnanimous, generous, courageous, willing to forgive and forget, and willing to help the world than have the Americans. So after World War II, we raised Germany and Japan up. This remains our greatest foreign policy triumph. We took those two nations that had no long tradition of freedom and made them into viable, prosperous democracies.

Today, because of the United States, more people throughout the world live in freedom than any time in history. If we are willing to accept the challenge, it may yet be our destiny to change the course of history and to establish freedom as a universal value.

Excerpt from:

Freedom: The History of an Idea - Foreign Policy Research Institute

In betweenthe Lakes Region and the White Mountain Region of NH, Freedom is a small town surrounding a little village. Take a walk through the village on a Saturday evening and youll encounter few cars, but enjoy the white picket fences, well-kept homes and large barns that hint of the towns history.

Freedom? In 1831 the village of North Effingham voted to secede from Effingham, and in 1832, the new town celebrated its independence by changing its name to Freedom.

For a tangible taste of Freedom history, visit The Historical Societys charming museum where lemonade and cookies are served to visitors on summer afternoons. Members can also provide a quick sketch of the history of Freedom as seen in the houses standing along the quiet village streets.

Every year in August the community of Freedom celebrates Old Home Week, a New Hampshire tradition that was officially recognized by Proclamation in the New Hampshire State Legislature in 1913.

In the Village youll find the Town Hall, a Protestant church, Masonic Lodge and the Freedom Village Store: a non-profit, volunteer run store where you can get a cup of coffee, buy a newspaper and catch up with your neighbors. Just around the corner,the Public Library is open several days a week.

Go here to see the original:

Town Of Freedom Official Site

Juneteenth, also known as Freedom Day, takes its name from June 19, 1865, the day General Gordon Granger and Union troops finally arrived in Galveston, Texas, and announced to slaves in the state that they were freean entire two-and-a-half years after Abraham Lincolns Emancipation Proclamation, the executive order outlawing slavery in the United States. Though Juneteenth has been observed by many Black Americans since 1866, often with parades, picnics, and other celebrations, its declaration as a federal holiday in 2021 has highlighted both the continued tragic effects of chattel slavery and the irreplaceable contributions of Black Americans and the descendants of slaves. In observance of that ideal, Apple Music celebrates Juneteenth 2022 with Freedom Songs, a collection of exclusively commissioned new songs from Black creatives like Elena Pinderhughes, Kranium, Lupe Fiasco, Alex Isley, 6LACK, and Brittney Spencer, to name a few. Some have contributed original compositions, while others have chosen to cover existing songs that speak to the spirit of the holiday. Listen to the stories their selections tell as we celebrate Juneteenth and the invaluable legacy of Black music.

*Bun B, This Is What We Do* If you didnt know me and you heard this song, at the very least you would see that Im about family, Im about tradition, Im about legacy and heritage, Bun B says of This Is What We Do, his contribution to Apple Musics Freedom Songs 2022. And that you should be, too. Because Juneteenth is not justobviously, its an African American historical event, but its also just American. Juneteenth is a way of acknowledging, Yes, this happened in America. Yes, we started the process of dissolving it, but it was a very slow and steady process that is still not fully formed. We always have to be aware of that.

*Elena Pinderhughes, Get Away*For Juneteenth 2022, California-born singer and flautist Elena Pinderhughes wrote Get Away, which speaks to the gratitude she has for being able to free her mind. Ive been celebrating how people are breaking out of boundaries, creating new ways of being and making, Pinderhughes says. Ive been celebrating the increased conversation around the importance of Black mental health and self-care and the ways that we are demanding our rights to it. I continue to celebrate the power of Black women and the change that we make. I also think of the words of the poet Lucille Clifton: Come celebrate with me that everyday something has tried to kill me and has failed.

*Alex Isley, We Are One*R&B singer-songwriter Alex Isley chose to take on We Are One by Maze Featuring Frankie Beverly, because their music is just so celebratory and filled with so much joy. Juneteenth, in particular, is a holiday on which Isley says she can look inward and appreciate her journey as a Black creative. Theres power in my authenticity, and Im just grateful for life, Isley says. I am a daughter, Im a mother, Im a friend. So, just practicing gratitude, I think thats a big part of Juneteenth: the gratitude and celebration of who we are and the pride of that and the beauty and the richness of our culture and our power.

*Lupe Fiasco, Galveston*I try to make things that establish emotion and utility so that not only can people feel it, but they can actually do something with it, Lupe Fiasco says. Theres only so much utility you can have in music, but it all boils back down to education and instruction. For Apple Musics Freedom Songs 2022, Fiasco created Galveston, a song that forces us to reckon with the unimaginably high cost of freedom. Galveston is about taking Juneteenth, which is normally a celebration of a very specific set of eventsthe manumission from slavery of Black folksand approaching it from a different angle, Fiasco says. Looking at it as the impact of it, versus the event. And one of the impacts of Juneteenth was that the abolition of slaveryit introduced all of this other extra tension and new realities, and some of those new realities werent that good. So, 1865, you get abolition of slavery, Emancipation Proclamation, all that good stuff, end of the Civil War. But that same year, you also get the birth of the Ku Klux Klan. So, to me, it was a life-and-death type thing where death was brought to one thing, but then it created lifeit gave birth to another thing.

*Eladio Carrion, El Sol Va a Salir*For his contribution to Freedom Songs 2022, Puerto Rican MC Eladio Carrin created El Sol Va a Salir, a song inspired by one of the greatest hip-hop storytelling tracks of all-time. I did this song with [producer] Vinylz, and the second I heard the beat, it gave me a vibe of the Eminem Stan song that he writes to a fan, Carrin says. I thought it would be a cool ideasince I have a few friends that are in jail right nowto make a song as if someone was in jail writing to their family members. It could be an innocent person or someone that regrets what they did. And its just the person saying, I know things are bad right now, but I know that the suns going to come up, and theyre going to be good days.

*Jlin, I Am*If I Am was the only song that someone ever heard from me, I would just want them to feel my vulnerability, Indiana-hailing DJ and producer Jlin says. Its a percussion conversation. In African culture, drums are a form of communication. They were before and after colonization, so I just wanted to hone in on that and just have a conversation with percussion.

*SEB, Paranoia*For Chicagoans of a certain age, the influence of Chance the Rapper was inescapable. LA-based singer and producer SEB, who spent some of his formative years in Chicago, chose to cover Chance and Nosaj Things Paranoia for Freedom Songs 2022 for that very reason. I picked Paranoia because it just brings me back to Chicago, SEB says. I first heard that song when I started traveling to the South Side for school, so that really made it hit hard. It was two very different environments going from the North Side to the South Side every day. I decided to totally reproduce the song to paint a better picture of what I was seeing.

*Kranium, Revolution*For his contribution to Apple Musics Freedom Songs 2022, Kranium covered Dennis Browns Revolution, a 1983 song the Jamaican singer notes is as relevant today as it ever was. A lot of stuff that is being said in that song is actually something that we are living with until this day, he says. The choice to cover Brown was also a means of bridging the gap between the dancehall of today and the reggae Kranium was raised on. Growing up, Dennis Brown was one of our favorite singers, he says. Thats the Crown Prince of Reggae. Were considered the new-school singers, so I wanted to make sure that I keep it 100 percent pure and real, showing respect to the great Dennis Brown but still putting my own Kranium swing into it.

*Cautious Clay, Been in the Way*I was really trying to capture the many things that can be in the way of allowing us to relate to each other and the people that we care about, Cautious Clay says of Been in the Way." "I kind of come in hot with religion, [with] wrist blood being sort of a signifier of Jesus and how organized religion can sort of have its negatives in some cases and is sometimes used for power rather than for actual spirituality. And then I move on to rose gold, which in many ways signifies wealth and beauty and how that can get in the way of relationships with depth. So, its all things that we face in our lives that I find super important.

*Denzel Curry, 1st Quarter*For his contribution to Apple Musics Freedom Songs 2022, Florida MC Denzel Curry created 1st Quarter, a song he says is about celebrating how far hes already come in his young life. Its an accomplishment to make it through the first quarter of my life, Curry says. Especially as a Black man in America. When it comes to the type of legacy hed like to leave behind and even how his supporters can ensure their own, his advice is simple: Do what you do, do whats right, and be legendary.

*6LACK, Umi Says*When I hear the word legacy, I think of purpose, I think of what you leave on this earth when youre no longer physically here, the impact you make, the lives you change, the stories that youve created, 6LACK says. For Freedom Songs 2022, the Atlanta crooner covered Mos Defs 1999 classic Umi Says, a choice he claims was a no-brainer when a manager suggested it to him and his team. My brother Forward Slash led the way with the soundscape, 6LACK says, and I just came through and did my best cover.

*Brittney Spencer, More Than Perfect*Growing up, I didnt see a lot of peoplein fact, anybodydoing what Im doing today, country singer Brittney Spencer says, commenting on the traditional lack of Black faces in country. I didnt realize until my adult years that that sort of image has shaped what I thought I could do in the world, who I could be in the world, and knowing that if maybe even one person is seeing what Im doing today, they might decide a lot quicker than I did that they can actually go for something thats really on their heart. For Juneteenth 2022, Spencer cooked up More Than Perfect, a song focused on inner beauty. Its about not putting so much weight and stock into appearance as if it could ever tell the full story of who a person is, she says. An artful display of fashion and tattooswhich I haveand makeup and filters and all these things, it will never tell you about someones character, their dreams, their aspirations, the things they care about, the people they care for. Itll never tell you the whole story because it just simply cant.

*Moliy, The Place*I love being appreciated for what I do and how far Ive come, Moliy says. Theres so much that Im yet to see and do, but just knowing anything can happen at any moment of my journey as an artist is really exciting. In my world, every song I create is literally a stepping-stone to building my legacy. For Apple Musics Freedom Songs 2022, the Ghanaian American singer created The Place, a song about the kind of society we all dream about living in. The Place is about hope and wanting to belong somewhere safe, Moliy says. Somewhere that love and light reigns, where everyone can thrive without the need to do evil and knowing theres like-minded people out there who all want the same.

*WSTRN, Free Your Mind*UK collective WSTRN delivered Free Your Mind, a song they say is about overcoming adversity. Its about acknowledging the power of unity and being free, vocalist Haile says. Accepting that obstacles will cross your path but knowing that holding onto faith can always get you through anything. Louis Rei adds that he wanted to speak to people destined for bigger things but who might not yet understand their own potential. My verse, especially, is targeting those that have a light within them, but they come from a dark place, he says. And its very much reflective of that and asking oneself questions to attain greatness and overcoming and becoming the higher vibration of yourself.

*Damien Sneed, Sequestered Thoughts*Juneteenth is observed as a celebration, Damien Sneed says. For me, its also a moment to understand and recognize the plight of my ancestors and all of those from the African diaspora and the African American diasporaI am celebrating the moment in time to use my art, my creativity, my musical voice, to give voice to those who dont have a voice. For his contribution to Apple Musics Freedom Songs 2022, the pianist and composer wrote Sequestered Thoughts, a piece he says was born of isolation but that might bring people together in its expression of everyones need to have their humanity recognized. The pandemic was a jolt for me, Sneed says. I had just finished a 40-city tour, and I was at home alone in New York City, sequestered in place. This composition is meant to evoke confinement, hope, and the will to survive. Also, it represents something that was birthed out of the untimely murder of George Floyd. So, the piece also resonates with protests against all types of violence, racism, and oppression.

*Koryn Hawthorne, I Need You Now*Anytime I record a cover, I always do my best to try to make sure I put a little bit of myself into it, Koryn Hawthorne says. I feel like weve done a good job of that on this record. It has slight R&B vibes, but it still has the true heart of worship in it. Hawthorne, a gospel vocalist who can also boast having once earned a spot as a finalist on The Voice, chose Smokie Norfuls I Need You Now for her contribution to Apple Musics Freedom Songs 2022. The song, she says, will only ever bring her good memories: I am a huge Smokie Norful fan. This song, in particular, has been a staple throughout my entire life. I feel like, at any given moment, I could play this song and be taken back to a special place.

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Juneteenth 2022: Freedom Songs on Apple Music

This year, Pence has taken on a new persona among the crowda Trump era castoff who is probably better off not showing his face. And he seems to know it. The former veep was invited to the conference but decided not to attend. It was the first time Pence had missed the conference in five years.

I was such a big fan of his but that part of the Republican Party is the educational elites the old horses are on their way out, said Mary Obersteadt, the immediate past president of Nashville Republican Women. She wore rhinestone Trump and DeSantis pins on her conference lanyard. I respect him for what he did and how he served this nation but hes so disappointing when he - he should have communicated and stayed with Trump with Jan. 6, they should have been on the same level.

Pences absence from this years conference was due to a scheduling conflict, according to the conference organizers and Pences team. On Thursday, he attended a roundtable with Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine.

But while he still is rooted in the Christian conservative community, having attended an event with the Coalition in North Carolina to engage Chrisitan voters in the Charlotte area, his decision to skip the Faith & Freedom gathering underscores the crossroads he currently finds himself in politically.

I think hes seeking Gods direction for his decision on what to do next, said Dr. Robert Jeffress, pastor at First Baptist Dallas, who is close to both Pence and Trump, and sits on the advisory board for Pences political group, Advancing American Freedom.

At a time when Pences main ideological causes are on the cusp of historic successwith the Supreme Court set to overturn the landmark abortion rights case, Roe v. Wade he finds himself in the thick of intra-party drama. This week, the House select committee investigating the riots on Capitol Hill zeroed in on Pences decision to resist Donald Trumps pressure for him to block certification of the Electoral College vote count.

Former U.S. President Donald Trump points to the crowd after giving the keynote address at the Faith & Freedom Coalition during their annual "Road To Majority Policy Conference" on June 17, 2022 in Nashville, Tennessee.|Seth Herald/Getty Images

While Pence has, so far, dodged discussing the committees proceedings, Trump used his own appearance at the Faith & Freedom conference to attack his veep.

Mike Pence had a chance to be great, he had a chance to be frankly historic, Trump said. But Mike did not have the courage to act.

It was a remarkable moment for a conference that in past years served as a celebration for the former vice president as a top conservative Christian leader. But things have changed since Trump left office. Last year, in the shadow of Jan. 6, Pence was jeered by the crowd and called a traitor while on stage. Now, when asked about what they think of Pence or how they view his political future, attendees sighed or visibly shrugged.

Thats a good question, said Sandi McGuire, a Christian minister from Raleigh, North Carolina. I havent seen him much. I dont like speaking adverse toward anyone, he did great work. He came here last year and a percentage booed him. Im not sure in fairness where he is. I wish him the best but he hasnt been anywhere to be found.

Its kind of hard, its a hard one, said Emily Hinojos from Rutherford, N.C. when asked about Pences political future. I dont know where hes at since Jan 6. Its hard to tell youre not in their shoes but we would have liked him to support Trump better.

The mood of the crowd at Faith & Freedom reflected the degree to which Republican politicians are judged not so much by their ideologies but by their relationship to Trump. Ralph Reed, a Republican strategist and founder of the Faith & Freedom Coalition, is close with both Trump and Pence. But when asked if he was surprised by Trumps attacks, he would only say he consulted with Trumps speechwriters yesterday.

If Mike Pence wanted to come and wanted to offer a rejoinder to these folks, he could have done it. Im not saying he should have done it. I told him when I saw him a couple weeks ago, no harm no foul, but I said I want you here next year and hell be there, Reed said to a small group of reporters after Trumps speech.

Former U.S. President Donald Trump exits the stage after giving the keynote address at the Faith & Freedom Coalition during their annual "Road To Majority Policy Conference" on June 17, 2022 in Nashville, Tennessee.|Seth Herald/Getty Images

Pences own relationship with Trump is deeply complicated. For a few months after leaving the White House, the two would occasionally speak. But they havent talked for a year now even though their paths have occasionally crossed, including when both men addressed top Republican donors at a retreat in New Orleans in March. Trump continues to admonish his former vice president in public, while Pence has remained firm in his decision to certify the election.

In recent months, Pence has turned his focus to the midterms. Hes offered endorsements in key midterm races like Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and held a fundraiser for incumbent Rep. Steve Chabot on Thursday. On Monday, he is set to deliver a speech on the economy at the University Club of Chicago.

Our path is a little bit different than everybody else is at this point, said a person close to Pences political operation, who defended Pences decision to not go to the Nashville cattle call. And whether he decided to do this thing or not, he doesnt have to go there to get coverage.

But its unclear how Pence can build up a national profile if he were to lose the full support of his bedrock constituency: Evangelicals. Not everyone in his camp is worried. Aides to Pence say he holds appeal across the Republican party.

Vice President Pence checks the hawk lane. He checks the traditional GOP lane. And obviously probably the biggest one is the Evangelical lane, said the Pence ally.

And Bob Vander Plaats, president and CEO of The Family Leader, a conservative Christian parent organization for the Iowa Family Policy Center, said Pences support remains strong among social conservatives and Evangelicals in Iowa, especially as support of Trump wanes.

Not to play Bob Seger on you, but I think theyre looking to turn the page, Vander Plaats said of Iowa voters he talks to. Take the best of Trump, and lets see if Ron DeSantis can carry on that fightor Mike Pence or Mike Pompeo or Ted Cruz or whoever you throw into that match.

But among those in Nashville this weekend, Pence seemed more a relic of the past than an element of the future. None of the merchandise stalls that lined the entrance to the conference ballroom featured Pences name, while there were piles of red, white, and blue Trump and Trump 2024 t-shirts and hats for sale.

I feel like he was mistreated so long he wanted to give his soul a break and his family. I dont think its political, its personal he doesnt want to get attacked right now, said Krista Kiepke from Clarksville, Tenn. Jesus himself removed from the disciples to refresh so he could do his job so I look at it as that.

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Pence skips Faith & Freedom conference. Is attacked by Trump anyways. - POLITICO