Supernova 1987A appears as a bright spot near the centre of this image of the Tarantula nebula, taken by the ESO Schmidt Telescope.Credit: ESO
Masayuki Nakahata has been waiting 35 years for a nearby star to explode.
He was just starting out in science the last time it happened, in February 1987, when a dot of light suddenly appeared in the southern sky. This is the closest supernova seen during modern times; and the event, known as SN 1987A, gained worldwide media attention and led to dramatic advances in astrophysics.
Nakahata was a graduate student at the time, working on what was then one of the world’s foremost neutrino catchers, the Kamiokande-II detector at the Kamioka Underground Observatory near Hida, Japan. He and a fellow student, Keiko Hirata, spotted evidence of neutrinos pouring out of the supernova — the first time anyone had seen these fundamental particles originating from anywhere outside the Solar System.
Now, Nakahata, a physicist at the University of Tokyo, is ready for when a supernova goes off. He is head of the world’s largest neutrino experiment of its kind, Super-Kamiokande, where upgrades to its supernova alert system were completed late last year. The improvements will enable the observatory’s computers to recognize when it is detecting neutrinos from a supernova, almost in real time, and to send out an automated alert to conventional telescopes worldwide.
Astronomers will be waiting. “It’s gonna give everybody the willies,” says Alec Habig, an astrophysicist at the University of Minnesota, Duluth. Early warning from Super-Kamiokande and other neutrino observatories will trigger robotic telescopes — in many cases responding with no human intervention — to swivel in the direction of the dying star to catch the first light from the supernova, which will come after the neutrino storm.
But when the light arrives, it could be too much of a good thing, says Patrice Bouchet, an astrophysicist at the University of Paris-Saclay who made crucial observations of SN 1987A, from the La Silla Observatory in Chile. The brightest events, which would shine brighter than a full Moon and be visible during the day, would overwhelm the ultra-sensitive but delicate sensors in the telescopes used by professional astronomers.
It was heralded as a game-changer for America's social safety net. It dramatically reduced child poverty. But, last month, the enhanced Child Tax Credit — a kind of "Social Security for kids" — expired, and millions of American children sank back into poverty.
In March 2021, President Biden and congressional Democrats revamped the Child Tax Credit as part of the American Rescue Plan. They restructured it, so that parents could get a monthly check from the government. They increased the credit's size, allowing parents to claim as much as $3,600 a year per child, or $300 a month. And they made the credit fully refundable, so that even super-low-income families who don't pay much — or anything — in federal taxes could get it.
For those primarily concerned with ending child poverty, these changes were a resounding success. Scholars at Columbia University found they reduced child poverty by about 30%. Another study found the enhanced program cut household food insufficiency by 26%.
But President Biden's efforts to renew the credit have been thwarted by opposition from Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and congressional Republicans. They disliked how much the program cost and how generous it was, and they worried that it would encourage parents to stop working because it did not have a work requirement.
According to the Tax Policy Center, the beefed-up Child Tax Credit would cost around $225 billion per year (about $100 billion more per year than the original version, which is now back in effect). For context, that's less than a quarter of the annual cost of Social Security, about a third of the cost of Medicare, and about the same as the budget for the Department of Agriculture. A report from the Urban Institute finds that even with the enhanced Child Tax Credit, America spent only about 7% of its federal budget on kids in 2021 — and that is now projected to decline.
As for how many parents stopped working as a result of the enhanced Child Tax Credit, estimates range from about 300,000 to 1.5 million. There are about 50 million working parents in the United States, so even if we accept only the highest estimate, more than 97% of parents continued working after receiving the payments. That makes sense because 300 bucks a month is hardly enough for most families to live on.
The failure of Washington to renew the enhanced Child Tax Credit continues a long tradition in America: Our welfare system has long spent generously on the old, but it has consistently skimped on the young. While America spends about as much, or even more on the elderly than many other rich nations, it spends significantly less on kids. Among the almost 40 countries in the OECD, only Turkey spends less per child as a percentage of their GDP. It's a big reason why the United States has a much higher rate of child poverty than most other affluent countries — and even has a higher rate of child poverty than some not-so-affluent countries.
In a new paper, the economists Anna Aizer, Hilary W. Hoynes, and Adriana Lleras-Muney explore the reasons why the United States is such an outlier when it comes to fighting child poverty. While they acknowledge the reasons are varied and complex, they focus their analysis on one factor: American policymakers, influenced by economists, have dwelled much more on the costs of social programs than their benefits. TO FIND OUT THE COST OF FOCUSING JUST ON COSTS,CLICK HERE...
A PLA-N Yuzhao-class amphibious transport dock vessel transits the Torres Strait February 18, 2022. Picture taken February 18, 2022. Australian Defence Department/Handout via REUTERS
SYDNEY — Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said a Chinese naval vessel that pointed a laser at an Australian defense plane was potentially visible from Australia’s mainland, as Canberra demands a “full investigation” by Beijing.
Morrison said on radio on Monday his government had not received an explanation from China over the incident last Thursday, considered by Canberra as a “dangerous and reckless act”.
A Chinese navy vessel within Australia’s exclusive economic zone directed a laser at an Australian military aircraft in flight over Australia’s northern approaches, illuminating the plane and potentially endangering lives, Australia’s defense said on Saturday.
The P-8A Poseidon – a maritime patrol aircraft – detected a laser emanating from a People’s Liberation Army – Navy (PLA-N) vessel, the Defense Department said, releasing photographs of two Chinese vessels sailing close to Australia’s northern coast.
A Chinese guided missile destroyer and an amphibious transport dock were sailing east through the Arafura Sea between New Guinea and Australia at the time of the incident, and later passed through the narrow Torres Strait.
“It’s possible people could even see the vessel from our mainland, potentially,” Morrison told reporters in Tasmania on Monday. READ MORE...
While recent rumors point to a global release in March, famed durability tester Zack from JerryRigEverything managed to get his hands on the device a little early. Unfortunately, it seems like this is one OnePlus device that might not make it out unscathed.
Avid JRE fans know how this usually goes: scratch test, burn test, bend test, all to see if a specific device can hold up to daily wear and tear. For the most part, the OnePlus 10 Pro performs as you'd expect.
Its glass display scratches around a level 6 on the Mohs hardness scale (once the screen protector is removed, at least), and the OLED display permanently burns after about 45 seconds under a lighter. That's all pretty usual for a smartphone in 2022.
It's the bend test where the real challenge comes in. Glass slabs usually handle this process pretty well, especially when reinforced with some sort of metal or steel.
Facebook’s metaverse was always intended to be more than another virtual reality application. It would provide users with infinite space and infinite possibilities, to move around, interact, engage, and even earn in a VR world. One of the key use cases the company has factored in is work.
“By 2030, the new generations of Oculus will allow users to teleport from one place to another without moving from their couch — not only for gaming and entertainment but also for work,” Mark Zuckerberg said in a March podcast. Then, in August, the company introduced a VR collaboration solution called Horizon Workrooms. And now, Facebook has completely rebranded as Meta, with a clear vision for a VR-enabled metaverse.
The notion of the metaverse contains within it several elements: multiple VR worlds, interactive and near-real digital assets, the ability to move around and teleport without restrictions, and problem-solving in 3D. All of these are extremely conducive to work-related use cases.
What Is the Metaverse? The metaverse is defined as a three-dimensional internet powered by virtual reality and augmented reality. It is persistent (exists regardless of the user’s presence), real-time (users can experience live events), infinite (supports unlimited concurrent users and VR worlds), self-sustaining (users can work for and pay for things in the metaverse), and interoperable (there’s only one metaverse and everything is integrated within it).
Importantly, this definition of the metaverse exists independent of Facebook (now rebranded as Meta). The term was coined in the 1992 sci-fi novel Snow Crash and there have been several attempts to build the metaverse since then. However, early attempts like Second Life, Roblox, and NeosVR were all limited gaming applications. The new metaverses put forward by Facebook and also Microsoft are geared for work-related use cases – i.e., communication, collaboration, and problem-solving.
Working in the Metaverse: Key Advantages What are the advantages of working in the metaverse? In 2019, this question might have been slightly harder to answer. But now, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, millions around the world were forced to switch to digital-only modes of communication and some kind of a virtual workspace. Working in the metaverse takes this a step further to bring you all the capabilities of the real world, with very little of its challenges or limitations. Overcome the challenges of remote work
This is the biggest advantage of working in the metaverse. When telecommuting, users often complain that they are unable to read body language and communicate effectively. Managers struggle to maintain visibility over team productivity. And, due to the prolonged absence of in-person interactions, there is risk of disengagement. The metaverse creates an immersive virtual workplace where 3D avatars of employees can work together just like in the real world. READ MORE...
About 6 weeks ago, when I got out of bed one morning, there was a deep muscle pain in both ass cheeks. It bothered me when I tried to walk but when I was sitting there was no pain at all. The next day, it was gone, but returned the following day. That lasted for about 7-10 days, then the pain was not only in my ass cheeks but started to radiate down the backs of both thighs.
This pain was consistent every morning, disappeared when sitting but returned when I tried to walk, and sometimes the pain was so great that, my legs gave way and I felt myself begin to fall to the ground, so I frooze and reached out for something to hold onto like the side of a wall.
This pain last for another 7-10 days when I decided to search online for exercises and when I did those exercises, my pain subsided for a while but always returned. About this time, I started icing but butt and the back of my thighs for 20 minutes each day and that seemed to help temporarily.
So, today after about 6 weeks, I decided to make an appointment with an orthopedic doctor and see if s/he can tell me what the hell is going on. I have this appointment for March 1, 2022 so it is only 5 days away.
According to my research, pain like this could be coming from:
A trucker convoy heading to Washington, D.C., later this week plans to shut down the Capital Beltway in protest of wide-ranging issues such as fuel prices, vaccine requirements and immigration, the organizer said. (WTTG)
A trucker convoy heading to Washington, D.C., plans to shut down the Capital Beltway later this week in protest of wide-ranging issues such as fuel prices, vaccine requirements and immigration, the organizer said.
Bob Bolus, who owns a truck parts and towing business in Scranton, Pennsylvania, told FOX5 DC that he heard hundreds of people were interested in taking part in shutting down the roadway in protest.
"I'll give you an analogy of that of a giant boa constrictor," Bolus said. "That basically squeezes you, chokes you and it swallows you, and that's what we're going to do the D.C."
Bolus, who the station reported is a longtime supporter of former President Trump, said that the protest will leave a lane open for emergency vehicles for safety, but he couldn’t promise that commuters would make it to work on time.
"We will not compromise anybody's safety or health, one way or the other," Bolus said. "As far as if they can't get to work, geez that's too bad."
The caravan comes as a similar demonstration involving truckers, dubbed the Freedom Convoy, shut down Ottawa, Canada, in protest of the country’s COVID-19 mandates. Authorities there had arrested 191 people and filed 389 charges, police announced mid-afternoon Sunday. They had also towed 99 vehicles.
In response to the impending protests in the capital, D.C. police have already limited time off for officers and put nearly 500 officers on civil disturbance units daily beginning Wednesday, the station reported.
Law enforcement in the D.C. area told the station that police are aware of the situation and are communicating with local, state, and federal partners.
Quick: what’s 4 + 5? Nine right? Slightly less quick: what’s five plus four? Still nine, right?
Okay, let’s wait a few seconds. Bear with me. Feel free to have a quick stretch.
Now, without looking, what was the answer to the first question?
It’s still nine, isn’t it?
You’ve just performed a series of advanced brain functions. You did math based on prompts designed to appeal to entirely different parts of your brain and you displayed the ability to recall previous information when queried later. Great job!
This might seem like old hat to most of us, but it’s actually quite an amazing feat of brain power.
And, based on some recent research by a pair of teams from the University of Bonn and the University of Tübingen, these simple processes could indicate that you’re a quantum computer.
Let’s do the math
Your brain probably isn’t wired for numbers. It’s great at math, but numbers are a relatively new concept for humans.
Numbers showed up in human history approximately 6,000 years ago with the Mesopotamians, but our species has been around for about 300,000 years.
Prehistoric humans still had things to count. They didn’t randomly forget how many children they had just because there wasn’t a bespoke language for numerals yet.
Instead, they found other methods for expressing quantities or tracking objects such as holding up their fingers or using representative models.
If you had to keep track of dozens of cave-mates, for example, you might carry a pebble to represent each one. As people trickled in from a hard day of hunting, gathering, and whatnot, you could shift the pebbles from one container to another as an accounting method.
It might seem sub-optimal, but the human brain really doesn’t care whether you use numbers, words, or concepts when it comes to math.
Let’s do the research
The aforementioned research teams recently published a fascinating paper titled “Neuronal codes for arithmetic rule processing in the human brain.”
As the title intimates, the researchers identified an abstract code for processing addition and subtraction inside the human brain. This is significant because we really don’t know how the brain handles math.
You can’t just slap some electrodes on someone’s scalp or stick them in a CAT scan machine to suss out the nature of human calculation.
Math happens at the individual neuron level inside the human brain. EKG readings and CAT scans can only provide a general picture of all the noise our neurons produce.
And, as there are some 86 billion neurons making noise inside our heads, those kinds of readings aren’t what you’d call an “exact science.”
The Bonn and Tübingen teams got around this problem by conducting their research on volunteers who already had subcranial electrode implants for the treatment of epilepsy.
Nine volunteers met the study’s criteria and, because of the nature of their implants, they were able to provide what might be the world’s first glimpse into how the brain actually handles math. READ MORE...
A distinct irony hovers over the standoff over Ukraine. A principal goal of President Vladimir Putin’s threat of invasion is to ensure Ukraine does not join NATO, which would grant Ukraine the protection of the alliance’s mutual-defense pact. But even if Russia had not poised troops on its borders, there was no realistic prospect in the near-to-medium term that the United States and its allies would accept Ukraine into their ranks. In a sense, both sides agree — Ukrainian leaders aside — that the nation does not currently belong in the Western alliance.
Clearly, NATO cannot, in response to Putin’s demands and threats, unconditionally promise to deny Ukraine membership forever. Still, the starting point for diplomacy should be the following: There is no way Ukraine will join NATO In the foreseeable future. The United States and its allies don’t want the security commitments that would involve; some NATO members have always been against it; and for Russia, the idea is threatening enough to become its main argument for invading now.
If we can devise a different way to ensure Ukraine’s security, membership may never be needed — as we should indicate to Moscow now.
Acknowledging that reality does not mean abandoning resolution in opposing Russian sabre rattling. If anything, to strengthen our deterrent, the threat of severe and lasting economic punishment if Russia attacks Ukraine should be intensified. Potential retaliation could include a serious U.S.-European Union-NATO plan to wean the West off Russian oil and gas over the next five years (for example, by expanding U.S. production and using NATO infrastructure funds and other resources to build more liquid natural gas terminals in western Europe.) President Biden has proposed shutting down the Nord Stream 2 pipeline linking Germany and Russia if Russia invades, but dismantling it fully would be an even stronger response.
Nonetheless, if the prospect of Ukraine in NATO is taken off the table — albeit not formally, or forever (not yet at least) — the focus of diplomacy can return to resolving the dispute over the two breakaway regions in Ukraine’s east, which Russia seeks to control.
As of 2021, the top 10 percent of Americans owned an average of $969,000 in stocks. The next 40 percent owned $132,000 on average. For the bottom half of families, it was just under $54,000.
52% of U.S. adults owned stock in 2016. Ownership peaked at 65% in 2007 and fell significantly due to the Great Recession. As of 2013, the top 1% of households owned 38% of stock market wealth.
The average American has $90,460 of debt, but the average net worth is $748,800. Net worth tends to increase with age as assets appreciate in value over time and people's salaries grow over their careers.
What percentage of homes are owned free and clear? The percentage of US households owned free and clear is a fair 37% according to Bloomberg's data analysis from Zillow. The past decade has seen a 5.5% rise in homeowners paying off their mortgages
The average American's savings varies by household and demographic. As of 2019, per the U.S. Federal Reserve, the median transaction account balance (checking and savings combined) for the American family was $5,300; the mean (or average) transaction account balance was $41,600.
By age 40, your goal is to have a net worth of two times your annual salary. So, if your salary edges up to $80,000 in your 30s, then by age 40 you should strive for a net worth of $160,000. Additionally, it's not just contributing to retirement that helps you build your net worth.
2019-2020 Federal Reserve SCF data also shows us the average retirement savings by age in the U.S.: • Ages 18-24: $4,745.25 • Ages 25-29: $9,408.51 • Ages 30-34: $21,731.92 • Ages 35-39: $48,710.27 • Ages 40-44: $101,899.22 • Ages 45-49: $148,950.14 • Ages 50-54: $146,068.38 • Ages 55-59: $223,493.56 • Ages 60-64: $221,451.67 • Ages 65-69: $206,819.35
Here are 10 tips for successful self-publishing, from authors who learned the hard way.
1) Give yourself more time than you think you’ll need Authors told me: “I didn’t realize how much time it would take,” “everything takes longer than you’d think,” and “it will take much longer than you think, especially if you aspire to quality.”
I’ve seen many aspiring authors want to get their books out yesterday, but you can publish a book fast or you can publish a book well; it’s harder to do both. Give yourself the space to make the best decisions for your book, hire the best people, and get clear on how your book fits in with your larger plans and goals.
2) Start marketing early Every author I spoke to reported that they wished they had begun marketing earlier. The basic rule I’ve heard is to start building your author platform (email list, social media, a forum or dedicated social media group if appropriate) 6 – 12 months before the book’s release and to start your actual marketing campaign (targeted blog posts, articles, podcasts, and advertising designed to create a buzz about your book) 2 – 3 months before the book is available.
It’s not enough to place ads or to send out an announcement to your email list (you do have an email list, don’t you?) once the book is released. You need to have a community of people who like the work you do, want what you’re offering, and are excited to buy your book before it even comes out.
3) Invest in the book “It costs a lot of money to publish a book” was another comment I heard repeated in my conversations with authors. And it’s common in online self-publishing groups for aspiring authors to ask, “How much does it cost to publish?” The answer is: it can cost as much as you’re willing to pay, and you (and your readers) will get what you pay for.
To be successful in any venture, including self-publishing, you’ll need to commit to going all-in with your project. This includes financially. Think of the book as one aspect of your overall strategy to meet your income and creative goals, understand how it fits in with your plan, and give the book every chance to be successful. The books that disappear into obscurity are the ones whose authors didn’t spend the time or money to help them fly.
4) Don’t do everything yourself There are a lot of steps to self-publishing. It’s much more than simply writing your manuscript on Word and then throwing it up on a print-on-demand site and waiting for the cash to come rolling in.
There’s conceptualizing your book idea so that it’s compelling to your target audience; writing and revising the manuscript; possibly gathering beta readers and a developmental editor; hiring a copy editor; designing the cover and interior; getting it proofread; uploading the final product; collecting reviews; building your author platform; creating a website that’s discoverable through an internet search; developing and implementing your marketing and publicity plans…whew! That’s a lot to keep track of.
If you value your sanity: don’t do it all yourself.
Think about the aspects of the work that are overwhelming to you or that you don’t enjoy or that you don’t know how to do, and hire others to do those tasks.
5) Hire professional designers It’s a truism in publishing that “everyone thinks they’re a book designer.” Several of the authors who weighed in on my questions cautioned against designing your own. The truth is that people DO judge a book by its cover. If your cover is “blah” or simply bad, it will turn potential readers off. After all, one side effect of so many people self-publishing is that there’s always another book to choose if you’re not impressed with the one right in front of you.
Good book designers have the experience and training to understand how to use color, images, and typography to create an attractive design.
And designing the interior of the book to be attractive and readable is not as easy as you might think: a good designer can make your book look beautiful and give your readers an enjoyable experience when they open (or scroll through) the book.Spend the money to hire professionals. Your book will be the better for it.
6) Create community The first rule of book marketing — or any marketing, really — is to build a community around your product. Successful authors know this and start gathering and engaging their community far before the book is released.
You’re writing for a specific person: understand your book’s audience, then create a plan about how to get those people together and excited about communicating with one another and with you.
You can create community online using social media, Facebook groups, a forum on Mighty, or through other means. Or, depending on the type of community you’re building, you can have in-person events or gatherings. The goal is to have people come together out of mutual love for something (your genre, your main character, your particular angle on your subject) or a topic (for nonfiction books, a health concern, an experience, a hobby or interest, or a healing modality). This way, when your book comes out (and your second book, and your third book . . .), you’ll have a ready-made audience who want to buy it.
7) Use your book as a business builder As I’ve mentioned above, don’t look at this particular book as an end to your publishing journey. Think of it as part of your business plan.
For example, books are excellent tools to tell people about your particular approach to a problem or challenge and to encourage them to buy a product or sign up for a service you provide.
If you write fiction or poetry, you can continue to publish and give your fans what they want: more of what they love about your writing. Successful self-published authors often have several books available: the more books you have (as long as they’re providing the experience your readers want) the more successful you will be financially.
8) Pay attention to your marketing and cover text After you’ve spent all that time writing and revising your manuscript, you may think the writing part is over. Not so fast!
The title and subtitle; the back cover copy; the book description for online retailers; and the content for ads or press releases, press packages and other writing all needs to be just as good as your book. Unless you’re a professional marketer, you may want to find someone with an expertise in this kind of writing (or ask your developmental editor to help, if you feel that person has improved your manuscript).
You’ll need to capture the interest and the imagination of your ideal reader for them to stop long enough to consider buying your book. Spend the time to craft your copy to make it as intriguing as possible.
9) Build an e-mail list An email list is one of the most effective ways to market your book(s). But how do you build one?
Create freebie add-on products and offers (services and perks that people will want) that parallel with your book in exchange for gathering your potential customers’ email addresses.
For instance, if your book is teaching people how to do a particular type of meditation, create a nicely designed product that has to do with that meditation (a nicely designed bookmark or postcard that offers a mantra or chant to use while meditating) and send it out for free if the person gives you their email address. Then add them to your email list and use the list to send out useful and interesting material that relate to your book and to your community.If you’re going to advertise, advertise the freebie or service in order to gather the email addresses of your target readers.
10) Drop the perfectionism One of my clients told me that she rewrote her manuscript at least ten times and that she actually has to stop herself from continuing to rewrite it.
Let’s face it, our books are our babies, and we want the best for them. It’s often hard to look at the book you spent so much time and energy on without wanting to change something. “Oh, maybe I could have said that better. Should I change that sentence?” or “Hmm . . . maybe the cover image is too small, should I tweak it?”
Since you can make changes to most self-published books fairly easily, it can be tempting to continually work on your book. But at a certain point, it’s not serving you or the book to keep obsessing over it, so let it go. It may not be perfect, but that’s OK. Focus on your community and your ultimate goal for your business and your book(s). Let the book be what it is.
If you’re considering self-publishing a book, congratulations! The self-publishing journey is exciting and fulfilling, and the community of self-published authors is helpful and supportive. I encourage you to find groups of other authors to join, whether online or face-to-face. It’s easier and more fun when you have people around you to support and mentor you.
Don’t worry if you don’t know how to self-publish: nobody did before they started. You’ll learn a lot and probably make some mistakes, and that’s OK. Good luck!
Melissa Kirk (WNBA-SF) is the founder of Words to Honey Editing and Publishing Services and the author of Depression 101: A Practical Guide to Treatments, Self-Help Strategies, and Preventing Relapse. She has been working with writers, artists, and creatives on writing, editing, marketing, and content strategy for decades, including 16 years in nonfiction book publishing, over 20 years blogging (yep, I had my first blog in 1999), and, more recently, writing and developing business plans, web content, branded marketing content, e-books, and catalog copy.
Former US President Donald Trump's social media app Truth Social became available for download in Apple's App Store on Sunday night, but some people had trouble creating an account. Despite this, it hit No. 1 in the App Store's top charts early Monday.
People who downloaded the app reported seeing error messages when they tried entering a birthdate, e-mail or phone number to create an account. "Something went wrong. Please try again," the message read.
Others reported they were placed on a waitlist after signing up. "Due to massive demand, we have placed you on our waitlist," read the message, which included a waitlist number. People who preordered Truth Social had the app automatically downloaded to their iPhones.
The app's release underscores Trump's plans to return to social media after being booted from Facebook, Twitter and YouTube last year. The companies made the rare move to bar Trump, who was president at the time, from its platforms because of concerns that his remarks could spark violence following the deadly Jan. 6 Capitol Hill riots.
Truth Social, which looks similar to Twitter, is also another example of an alternative social media app like Parler, Gettr and Rumble that conservatives have flocked to because of censorship concerns. Facebook and Twitter have long denied that they intentionally suppress conservative content. The companies have rules against hate speech and inciting violence, but users don't always agree with how they interpret these policies.
The Trump Media and Technology Group first announced it was launching Truth Social in October as part of an effort "to stand up to the tyranny of Big Tech."
CEO Devin Nunes, a former Republican congressman, told Fox News on Sunday that the app would roll out this week to more people in the Apple App Store. The company has a goal of making the app fully operational by the end of March at least within the US, he told Fox News.
On Feb. 15, Trump's son Donald Trump Jr. posted what he said was the former president's first post on Truth Social: "Get Ready! Your favorite President will see you soon!" About 500 people have reportedly started using an early version of Truth Social, Reuters reported last week.
VIENNA, Feb 21 (Reuters) - A package of sanctions prepared by the European Union in case Russia invades Ukraine includes measures targeting the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline connecting Russia to Germany, Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer said on Monday.
"Certification (of the pipeline) would then be stopped (if Russia invaded). There is no question about that. That therefore means that Nord Stream 2 is part of the sanctions," Nehammer told a news conference.
The pipeline has been built but is not yet operational as it is awaiting German and EU regulatory approval. read more
VIENNA, Feb 21 (Reuters) - Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said on Monday that talks in Vienna on reviving Tehran's 2015 nuclear deal with world powers cannot succeed unless the United States is prepared to lift sanctions on the Islamic Republic.
Reuters reported last week that a U.S.-Iranian deal is taking shape in Vienna after months of indirect talks to revive a pact Washington abandoned in 2018 under then-President Donald Trump. read more
"The United States must prove its will to lift major sanctions," Raisi said in a joint news conference with Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani in Doha. "To reach an agreement, guarantees are necessary for negotiations and nuclear issues."
The draft text of the agreement also alluded to other issues, including unfreezing billions of dollars in Iranian funds in South Korean banks, and the release ,of Western prisoners held in Iran.
"Aggression is bound to fail. Resistance has brought results and none of the regional issues have a military solution," Raisi said. Raisi was more cautious than Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh, who said earlier that the Vienna negotiations had made "significant progress".
Khatibzadeh also said that "nothing is agreed until everything is agreed" in the Vienna talks. "The remaining issues are the hardest," he told a weekly press briefing. READ MORE...
Melissa Kirk (WNBA-SF) is the founder of Words to Honey Editing and Publishing Services and the author of Depression 101: A Practical Guide to Treatments, Self-Help Strategies, and Preventing Relapse. She has been working with writers, artists, and creatives on writing, editing, marketing, and content strategy for decades, including 16 years in nonfiction book publishing, over 20 years blogging (yep, I had my first blog in 1999), and, more recently, writing and developing business plans, web content, branded marketing content, e-books, and catalog copy. 
Melissa Kirk (WNBA-SF) is the founder of Words to Honey Editing and Publishing Services and the author of Depression 101: A Practical Guide to Treatments, Self-Help Strategies, and Preventing Relapse. She has been working with writers, artists, and creatives on writing, editing, marketing, and content strategy for decades, including 16 years in nonfiction book publishing, over 20 years blogging (yep, I had my first blog in 1999), and, more recently, writing and developing business plans, web content, branded marketing content, e-books, and catalog copy. 
