April, 2019

The new seismic event was too small to provide solid data on the Martian interior, which is one of InSight’s main objectives. The Martian surface is extremely quiet, allowing SEIS, InSight’s specially designed seismometer, to pick up faint rumbles. In contrast, Earth’s surface is quivering constantly from seismic noise created by oceans and weather. An event of this size in Southern California would be lost among dozens of tiny crackles that occur every day.

Newton District Court Judge Shelley M. Richmond Joseph and the court officer, identified in court documents as Wesley MacGregor, face several charges stemming from an April 2, 2018 incident in which the pair allegedly helped Jose Medina-Perez get out of the courthouse via a back door in order to elude the ICE agent who sought Medina-Perez.

Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., on Wednesday refused to acknowledge that the Mueller Report failed to establish evidence of a criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia and appeared to double down on his claims that President Trump puts Russia's interest before the U.S.
[...]
MSNBC host Ari Melber challenged Swalwell during his appearance.

• Experts at the Credit Suisse Global Supertrends Conference said major economies should welcome China's rise as an opportunity to recommit to and reestablish international statutes.
• "The world should accept the ascendancy of China, embrace it, make sure we minimize some of its more outrageous behavior, but at the same time integrate China into a new world order in which it plays a great role," said Ho Kwon Ping, founder of hospitality group Banyan Tree Holdings.

US firms in China are on the frontline for retaliation if there is no agreement or if Beijing chooses to react to the fierce anti-China rhetoric of US leaders... Another bad omen for US firms is “Made in China 2025”, which calls for national champions, state-owned, in fields of advanced manufacturing. It sets targets and funding levels for state firms only. Because of opposition from the US and other developed countries, Beijing is now playing down the 2025 plan. But it remains a national policy...

Now another hurdle is set to fall, should bilateral trade negotiations in coming weeks cement the deal that officials say is taking shape. An agreement could help solidify expectations for a stable yuan exchange rate, removing any incentive China might ever have had to use it as a retaliatory tool...

So in other words, let's hope there is no trade deal yet if we want to further weaken China...

They will do this despite recent warnings from the United States about Beijing’s rise in Latin America. Horrible.

North Korean leader cozies up to Russian president, looking for sanctions relief. Putin says he is ready to tell Trump about his talks with Kim, says 'there are no secrets'.

...In fact, the company’s stock had taken a larger hit earlier in the day, when Detroit giant Ford announced it will invest $500 million in the electric vehicle startup Rivian—a small but growing Tesla rival that has promised two 400-mile-range, fully electric utility vehicles by the end of next year...

More than 7,800 individuals allegedly abused 12,254 victims, according to the court testimony.

Blockchain-based browser Brave will reward users for watching ads. With this, the users of brave can earn around 70% of the Ad-revenue for going through the advertisements. This reward amount will be provided in the form of basic attention tokens (BAT).

This investment follows a $700 million round led by Amazon in February.

Swedbank has found itself caught up in a regional money laundering scandal originating with Danske Bank, which said last year that 200 billion euros ($223 billion) of suspicious funds moved through its Estonia branch between 2007 and 2015.

Swedish broadcaster SVT has reported that Swedbank processed gross transactions worth up to 20 billion euros a year from high-risk, non-resident clients, mostly Russian, through its Estonian branch from 2010 to 2016.

Dave Fitz, an FBI spokesman, confirmed agents from the Baltimore FBI office and the Washington IRS office were executing search warrants at those locations Thursday morning, as well as at least three other addresses associated with the Democratic mayor... The Republican governor had asked the Maryland Office of the State Prosecutor on April 1 to investigate Pugh’s sales of her self-published “Healthy Holly” children’s book series to the University of Maryland Medical System while she was on its unpaid board of directors.

Remember that Baltimore mayor that "didn't have money for school books" but still managed to spend hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars to ship school kids to anti-Trump protests? Yeah, that's her.

The FTC is investigating Facebook on charges it repeatedly and catastrophically failed to safeguard users' data, from allowing Cambridge Analytica to scrape 85 million users' information to permitting corporations like Microsoft and Netflix to access users' messages and other personal info as part of secret data sharing partnerships...

Its equipment works well enough, but Huawei's allegiance to the Communist Party concerns customers... Of all the external perils that face our country, we should consider the Communist Party threat to our communication infrastructure our No. 1 priority for building a protective wall.

China says it has complained to France after one of its warships entered Chinese territorial waters while passing through the Taiwan Strait this month. The incident marks a rare occasion of military friction between the two countries...

The core values of this nation… our standing in the world… our very democracy...everything that has made America -- America --is at stake. That’s why today I’m announcing my candidacy for President of the United States. #Joe2020 https://t.co/jzaQbyTEz3

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) April 25, 2019

While Apple doesn't try to get particular politicians elected, it still spend millions annually on lobbying, records show. Cook explained, 'We focus on policies, not politics.'...

The NRA said the law is unconstitutional because it violates its First Amendment right to free speech and association, and its 14th Amendment right to equal protection. It sued in Los Angeles federal court.

Last month, New Mexico committed to 100 percent clean electricity by 2045. California, Hawaii, Washington D.C., and Puerto Rico, passed similar laws a bit further back. There are similar bills pending in Illinois, Minnesota, New York, New Jersey, Virginia, Florida, and Massachusetts. And don’t forget the 100-odd cities — from Orlando, Florida to Pueblo, Colorado — that have vowed to kick their fossil-fuel addiction...

This would allow owners of Teslas equipped with autonomous functionality to rent out their car while it is not in use via an app.