Thursday, July 17
Headlines
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Robert Reich
The Supreme Court, the Deep State, and Jeffrey Epstein
Friends,
Anyone wanting to understand the brouhaha over Pam Bondi’s refusal to turnover (or even acknowledge) the Epstein files need look no further than what the Supreme Court just did.
In McMahon v. New York the Supremes gave Trump a simple way to revoke federal spending authorized by Congress: just fire everyone responsible for implementing that spending.
The high court is allowing Trump and Education Secretary Linda McMahon to fire over half the people who work for the Department of Education until there’s a full hearing on the constitutionality of their action. But by then it will be too late to save much of the department.
Note that the Supreme Court made this astounding decision on its so-called “shadow docket” where it doesn’t even have to explain itself (the only record we have is Justice Sotomayor’s dissent).
At A Glance
Dinosaur mating dance floor found in Colorado.
The US states with the most tornadoes.
Dubai to open restaurant run by AI chef. (w/video)
A look at toy crazes over the years.
A longstanding mystery about rivers may have been solved.
What to do if an airline loses your bags.
Astronomers capture birth of planets around baby sun.
Why is color blindness more common in men?
Clickbait: The winners of this year's wife-carrying contest.
In The NEWS
Sports, Entertainment, & Culture
> Ozzy Osbourne's final performance with Black Sabbath raises a record-breaking $190M for charity (More) | Unreleased Beyoncé music and concert footage stolen during Cowboy Carter tour stop in Atlanta (More)
> Fauja Singh, Indian-born runner who broke a record by completing a marathon at age 100, dies at age 114 after being hit by a car (More) | David Kaff, actor and musician best known for starring role in "This Is Spinal Tap," dies at age 79 (More)
> Portland's WNBA expansion franchise adopts "Fire" nickname, previously used by the city's prior WNBA team that folded in 2002; the new Portland Fire will begin playing in 2026 (More)
Science & Technology
> AI startup Anthropic launches Claude for Financial Services; platform uses the company's flagship AI model to analyze market trends from a wide range of sources (More) | Google to invest $25B in AI data centers and infrastructure, including a 20-year, $3B contract to purchase Pennsylvania hydropower (More)
> Researchers 3D print biomaterial that mimics living lung tissue; advancement could allow development and testing of treatments for lung diseases without requiring living patients (More)
> Geologists link a meteor impact to a landslide in the Grand Canyon that created a dam and lake along the Colorado River roughly 56,000 years ago (More)
Business & Markets
> US stock markets close mixed (S&P 500 -0.4%, Dow -1.0%, Nasdaq +0.2%); Nasdaq hits record, lifted by Nvidia (+4.0%), which plans to resume AI chip sales to China (More) | Nvidia 101 (1440 Topics) | MP Materials, operator of the only US rare earths mine, inks $500M deal with Apple; MP Materials shares close up 20% (More)
> US consumer price index rose 2.7% year over year in June from 2.4% in May, while core inflation—excluding food and energy—rose 2.9% year over year; both figures are in line with estimates (More) | Cryptocurrency regulation bills fail to clear procedural hurdles in Congress (More)
> Former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati officially closes $2B seed round for her generative AI startup, Thinking Machines Lab, in what is one of the largest first funding rounds in history; deal values startup at $12B (More)
Politics & World Affairs
> Republicans vote to avoid Democratic-proposed amendment requiring floor vote on the release of government files related to deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein (More) | Justice Department said last week there was no evidence of a client list; read the two-page memo (More)
> Federal grand jury indicts man accused of fatally shooting Minnesota state Rep. Melissa Hortman (D) and her husband (More) | Men convicted of cutting down England's Sycamore Gap tree are sentenced to four years and three months in prison (More)
> Canadian wildfire smoke triggers air quality alerts in the Upper Midwest, including Chicago; Toronto air quality ranks among the worst in the world this week (More)
Project Management: Communications
One of the most valuable tools that a Project Manager has at his/her disposal is the COMMUNICATIONS NOTEBOOK...
Communications is at the heart of every project whether the Project Manager wants to believe it or not. The PM must be able to excel at both written and oral communications.
If the PM conveys a message to a Project Leader and that PL must convey that message to a group of workers, what guarantees does the PM have that the PL will convey that message with 100% accuracy?
The PM had no guarantees!!!
Only the Project Manager is responsible for messages being conveyed throughout the project team. Therefore, the PM must be able to talk/write clearly and concisely without any misunderstandings as to what words may or may not mean to everyone else on the team.
In order to facilitate this process a Project Notebook is kept with a copy of every single comment or memo that has been distributed to the Project Team in one form or another.
One valuable lesson that a PM learns over time is to take notes during ALL MEETINGS and during ALL TELEPHONE CALLS in case one needs to go back in time and verify what was communicated.
Everything that a PM does must be on the record, if for no other reason than to prove you were not told to do something, when a member of the team or stakeholders makes the claim that you were told.
NASA Just Flew Through the Sun’s Atmosphere
NASA’s Parker Solar Probe is revolutionizing our understanding of the Sun by flying closer than ever before, capturing jaw-dropping images from within the solar atmosphere.
These up-close images reveal structures within the solar wind, a continuous flow of charged particles that the Sun releases into space at speeds over 1 million miles per hour.
The new visuals and data are giving scientists critical insights into how the solar wind forms and behaves, which is key to understanding how it influences Earth.










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