June 20th, 2019

...there’s been no shortage of classified satellites to keep Molczan and his colleagues busy during the past 30 years. In fact, the National Reconnaissance Organization (NRO)—a government intelligence agency formed in 1961 that was so secretive its existence was classified until 1992—launched its most recent spy satellite just last month. Molczan and his colleagues were ready to track it...

So how does one begin tracking an object whose orbit is classified? The first step is to look for clues about the satellite’s trajectory that are publicly available. The most obvious place to start is with the rocket launch itself. Rockets are huge machines and a launch can be seen, heard, and felt for miles around, and details about the time and location of rocket launches are usually published weeks in advance...

Molczan said he wasn’t concerned that his activities pose a threat to others’ safety and said he’s never been contacted by a government official about his pastime. After all, if he and a loose network of amateurs are able to track these satellites so efficiently, it would be trivial for a national intelligence agency to do the same...

Today, amateur spy satellite hunters are tracking more than 360 satellites, rocket bodies, and other launch debris in their secret orbits. In the future, satellite hunters will have their work cut out for them as low Earth orbit becomes increasingly crowded with new spy satellites launched on a new generation of commercial rockets. The US military manifest already has dozens of launches on its schedule through 2023, DARPA is planning to launch a fleet of cheap spy satellites called Blackjack starting in 2021, and now the private sector is even starting to get in on the spy satellite business...

If you go outside near sunrise/sunset you can watch satellites fly overhead too. Go to heavens-above.com, put in your approximate location in the top-right, and click on any of the satellites on the main page. It gives you the time, altitude (in degrees above the horizon), and approximate cardinal direction. They've got lots of different satellites like the North Korean ones, Hubble, and ISS.

Over the past week, more than 180 Haitians have been arrested by Border Patrol agents at the Del Rio Station in Texas, a figure greater than the number of Haitians apprehended over the past three years nationwide, a Department of Homeland Security official told Fox News Wednesday. The apprehensions coincide with a slew of violent protests and uprisings in Haiti demanding that President Jovenel Moïse resign over allegations of government corruption.

Walmart Inc. came to dominate retailing through its mastery of logistics, the complicated choreography of getting goods from farm or factory to the consumer. But even the world’s biggest store doesn’t make money selling its wares online in the U.S., largely due to runaway shipping costs. So Walmart is turning to robots...

“This area has the least number of obstacles and the most certain return on invested capital in the near term,” said Mike Ramsey, an analyst with consultant Gartner Inc. “If you’re looking to start a business where you can actually generate revenue, this has fewer barriers than the taxi market.”...

Robert Shepherd at Cornell University and colleagues have developed a robot that is powered by its own artificial circulatory system.

It is powered by flow batteries, systems that consist of two electrodes and a liquid electrolyte that flows between them. As the liquid moves around, it powers pumps present in the robotic fish’s tail, dorsal and pectoral fins...

Last year, I shared my list of cheat sheets that I have been collecting and the response was enormous. Nearly a million people read the article, tens of thousands shared it, and this list of AI Cheat Sheets quickly become one of the most popular online!...

Over the past few months, we totally redesigned the cheat sheets so they are in high definition and downloadable. The goal was to make them easy to read and beautiful so you will want to look at them, print them and share them.

The project aims to design an urban system which integrates decentralised food, water and energy flows in order to create a nearly fully self-sufficient neighbourhood. It works based on the principle of “circularity”—recycling water, materials, and waste as much as possible within the system.

“Our current simulations show it should be possible to become 100 percent power, heat and water, and 50% food self-sufficient,” de Graaf said. “Living in a Smarthood will instantly reduce one’s ecological footprint by near 40 percent. We envision it as the circular, resilient neighborhood of the future, that solves many of the 21st century’s greatest challenges.”

The simulations demonstrate the potential viability of this model—the next step, which the de Graaf and his team are working on now, is to execute it on the ground in the Netherlands, and, from there, to encourage neighborhoods around the world to take it up...

The aide, Samantha Deforest Davis, was a staff assistant in Hassan’s office from August 2017 until last December. She was fired after Capitol Police discovered her possible involvement in the so-called "doxing" effort. Court documents accuse Davis of aiding 27-year-old Jackson A. Cosko, a former Hassan aide who has pleaded guilty to five federal offenses, including two counts of making public restricted personal information, and one count each of computer fraud, witness tampering and obstruction of justice. Prosecutors alleged Wednesday that Davis was persuaded by Cosko to "wipe down" Senate computers he had hacked. Davis now faces two misdemeanor charges: one federal count of aiding and abetting computer fraud and a District count of attempted evidence tampering, the Washington Post reported.

A recent speech by U.S. Ambassador to Greece Geoffrey Pyatt is causing Greek officials and the media alarm about American policy.

In an address to the 7th Annual Hellenic Air Force Academy Air Power Conferenceon May 15, Pyatt stressed America's strong support for its long-standing alliance with Greece, but he seemed to imply that the State Department would be pressuring Athens and Cyprus to cede to Ankara in its dispute over drilling rights in the Aegean Sea.
[...]
In his speech, Pyatt twice referred to Pompeo as his boss, but the feeling among Greek elites is that the State Department -- or at least its embassy in Greece -- is still operating according to the policies and worldview of Pompeo's predecessor, John Kerry, in particular, and the Obama administration in general. The sense in Greece is that the American embassy in Athens is not conveying Trump's messages in many areas, such as illegal immigration, Islamic terrorism, Iran and U.S. trade disagreements with the Eurozone...

So it seems Obama era appointees are still out there operating on behalf of the Deep State's interests. With Greece making noise about this issue, we will wait to see if Trump sees the efforts by Pyatt as a detriment to the administration's agenda.

Majorities of Americans across nearly all key demographic groups, except for Republicans, support allowing transgender men and women to serve in the U.S. military. Republicans (43%) are far less likely than Democrats (88%) and independents (78%) to support allowing trans servicemembers.

Ministry of Health communications director Carlos Suero told CNN on Wednesday that toxicology tests were being run on the samples to see if there’s anything out of the ordinary. The FBI’s involvement in the case was announced last week — with law enforcement sources telling The Post that agents were collecting blood samples from those who have died under mysterious circumstances.

Former Interpol President Meng Hongwei confessed to accepting more than $2 million in bribes and expressed regret for his crime, a Chinese court said Thursday... Elected president of the international police organization in 2016, Meng disappeared into custody after traveling to China from France at the end of September. Interpol was not informed of Meng’s detention and was forced to ask China about his whereabouts. The Tianjin court said Meng had abused his positions, including as a vice minister of public security and maritime police chief, to curry favor for others in return for bribes.

Visa seems to do everything on a massive scale. Last year, it moved $11.2 trillion over its payment rails across more than 200 countries for purchases ranging from cups of coffee to cars. Now it’s eyeing an even bigger market: cross-border, business-to-business (B2B) transactions, where banks transfer money on behalf of corporate customers. Visa says it’s entering a $125 trillion market and using distributed ledger technology—software where transactions must be confirmed by multiple computers on a network to be considered final—to make these payments faster, cheaper and more transparent...

One of the things learned since Apollo that Bezos highlighted is that there are deposits of water ice at the bottom of craters on the moon.

"We can harvest that ice and use to make hydrogen and oxygen, which are rocket propellants," Bezos said.

Blue Origin is developing its "Blue Moon" lunar lander, which Bezos unveiled last month. Bezos said Blue Moon is powered by a BE-7 engine, which uses hydrogen and oxygen as its two fuel sources...

So when do consumers get to use such an engine on earth?

The planets are orbiting a nearby star known as Teegarden’s Star. The star was first discovered back in 2003, but it wasn’t until much more recently that scientists have been able to see what may be orbiting it.

Teegarden’s Star is only around 12 light-years away, and it’s also incredibly old. Researchers believe the star to be at least eight billion years old, meaning that the planets surrounding it have likely had plenty of time to foster life. The star is rather tiny compared to our own Sun, with a mass less than 10 percent of our home star... Temperatures on the planets are right in the sweet spot where liquid water could flow on their surface, and they’re rocky worlds roughly the same size as Earth...

Jackson Cosko, 27, hacked into Senate computers and doxxed the lawmakers out of anger over their roles in US Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings... During these break-ins, Cosko copied dozens of gigabytes of data, including the contact info for many sitting senators, court documents show...

After growing angry over the GOP’s handling of the nomination process he posted the personal info of Graham (R-SC), Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) and now-former Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch on Wikipedia. He then released the info about Kentucky Sens. McConnell and Paul...

He didn't act alone. Remember Sheila Jackson Lee handing an envelope to Crazy Blasey Ford's attorneys earlier the same day?

Mustafa Mousab Alowemer, 21, is charged with one count of attempting to provide material support and resources to ISIS, as well as two counts of distributing information relating to an explosive, destructive device or weapon of mass destruction.

Alowemer was born in Daraa, Syria, and admitted to the U.S. as a refugee on Aug. 1, 2016, federal prosecutors said according to the criminal complaint against him. He recently graduated from a Pittsburgh-area high school and does not hold a U.S. passport.

Prosecutors allege that Alowemer said he was planning an attack against the Pittsburgh church in order to “take revenge for our [ISIS] brothers in Nigeria.”...

The Guard said it shot down a RQ-4 Global Hawk over Iranian airspace, while a U.S. official told The Associated Press the downing happened over international airspace in the Strait of Hormuz. The different accounts could not be immediately reconciled. Previously, the U.S. military alleged Iran had fired a missile at another drone last week that was responding to the attack on two oil tankers near the Gulf of Oman.

An official said the drone was a U.S. Navy MQ-4C Triton, according to Reuters. MQ-4C drones have a similar wingspan as a Boeing 737. Fox News said that it was flying over international airspace at the time and about 17 miles from Iran, the source said.

The United Nations has released a new report focusing on water, sanitation and hygiene around the world. It has found that approximately 2.2 billion people worldwide lack access to safe drinking water, 4.2 billion have to go without safe sanitation services and three billion lack basic handwashing facilities.

The report also examined the state of open defecation and progress in eliminating it. As Statista's Niall McCarthy reports, as recently as 2015, close to a billion people were still defecating outdoors, resulting in widespread disease and millions of deaths...