Farming fish lose their fertilizer and inoculation against misinformation.

Plus: Neanderthal hunt giant elephants; rubble pile asteroid threat and how particle physics helped us understand what was the matter.

Nearly every powered device we use these days depends on microchips, from cars to electric guitars. A look at the origin of the integrated circuit, its rapid development, and the way this technology has changed the world's geopolitical and economic landscape.

How can we meet the increased demand for the materials needed to build batteries, while keeping the environmental and human costs of resource extraction low?

The evolutionary biology of friendship and how digital tech has shaped our fundamental sense of togetherness.

LEDs are found in our phones, TVs, lightbulbs and cars, but this technology is also revolutionizing film and television production.

Security experts and historians discuss how the 6,000-year-old invention has evolved, shaping how we think about safety, protection and trespass in the physical and digital world.

On today's social media platforms, people speak in code to elude algorithmic censors, an example of how improvisation reshapes language.

Logic’s new album, College Park, is his first record as an independent artist after parting ways with Def Jam. He tells Tom Power about the ups and downs of major labels, his turbulent early life and how he has prevailed in spite of setbacks.

Hey Folks,

STORM CONTINUES FOR SOME

-Our Spring Storm continues to pound away on you folks on the in Eastern and Southeastern Labrador...
-Through today and into tonight another 10-15 cm of Snow could fall up through Mary's Harbour and up the Coast to Cartwright.
-Looks like 5-10 cm today for HV-GB and North of Gros Water Bay.
-Maybe more tomorrow for the North Coast depending on the track this thing takes.
-Winds will continue to gust to 70 or 80 km/h and so white out conditions will continue.

SNOW B-U-S-T

This was As Advertised from the very start "A Spring Storm"... but there's no doubt this system could have been much worse Snow wise across the Island. We did see some Snow up though Central and up the Northern Pen. However, some of the forecast models were showing as much as 20-25 cm in Central... and most of them were showing 40+ cm up the Northern Peninsula. And although I knew totals wouldn't be that high... I did think the cold air would hold on for more of a fight than it did.

But that's really been quite the common theme this winter hasn't it? Temperatures bumped up 1 or 2 degrees warmer than forecast and as a result we saw more Ice Pellets, Freezing Rain and Rain then anything else. Even up through the Northern Peninsula today... temperatures have bumped up ABOVE the freezing mark in many places. Some of you from Flowers Cove have been saying that not much Snow fell at all. Now the webcam in St. Anthony is showing some more Snowfall this afternoon... but Rain has been mixing in at times as well which is keeping totals down.

WEBCAM

I think it's Safe to say Spring has Officially and Unofficially arrived in Newfoundland. Old Man Winter has had another chance to get in there... and came up short again! (famous last words I'm sure... lol.)

Here are a few numbers from yesterday.

St. John's- 33.8 mm of Rain ( A New March 25th record)
St. Lawrence- 40 mm of Rain
Cape Race- 24 mm of Rain

Winds were very impressive from this Storm

Wreckhouse- 163 km/h
Port aux Basques- 119 km/h
Burgeo- 109 km/h
Argentia- 104 km/h
Twillingate- 96 km/h
Stephenville- 94 km/h

PEEK INTO THE LONG RANGE

-Most of us will see a taste of Sunshine tomorrow. An area of High pressure is going to sneak in from the South and clear things out overnight and into early tomorrow. However we'll see the Clouds building in late in the day from our next system building in from the Southwest.
-Thanks to the System rolling in... we'll see a solid Southwesterly flow.. that could bump temperatures to double digits in Newfoundland tomorrow!!!
-That system which is really more like a Cold front will cross the Labrador late Friday and Friday night and on Saturday across Newfoundland.
-On the Island it could drop a couple of wet cm's of Snow... especially in the East late Saturday.
-Things will be cooler in behind and will also start to clear again on Sunday.
-Early next week is looking pretty solid right now for most of the Province... although Western Labrador could see some Clouds and Flurries.

More details tonight on Here & Now.

Ryan

The China file is back on the desk of Canada's foreign affairs minister, Francois-Philippe Champagne. Not that it ever wandered very far.

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The way dogs are portrayed in literature reflects the problems in our real-world relationships to canines, says PhD student Molly Labenski, who says people want animals in their lives as “accessories” that can be easily discarded.

Chances are you are hearing Voiceprint, an independent audio service for blind and vision-impaired Canadians that includes entertainment, news, and information, often read by volunteer presenters. Voiceprint is available on Secondary Audio Program or SAP which is an audio setting on your Television. To hear the CBC Newsworld audio, you need to have your television audio set with the SAP feature off and stereo sound on.

Turning SAP on and off is done on most television sets through a menu using the remote control. Every television set is different, so the best way to do that is to follow the instructions in your owner's manual.

What you are hearing is a Described Video soundtrack on CBC Television. DV allows vision-impaired Canadians greater access to CBC Television programming by describing the scene and action during pauses in dialogue. The DV soundtrack is delivered on Secondary Audio Program or SAP which is an audio setting on your Television. To turn off the narration, you need to have your television audio set with the SAP feature off and stereo sound on.

Turning SAP on and off is done on most television sets through a menu using the remote control. Every television set is different, so the best way to do that is to follow the instructions in your owner's manual.

Poised to open in just six years, featuring spas, concert venues and even a Ferris wheel design, this out-of-this-world hotel will be a veritable playground for the ultra rich.

On International Fruit Day, one of the world's largest fruit producers did something very cheeky. It published a letter to His Holiness seeking apple absolution.

Every company dreams of doubling its profit. It’s almost impossible to do. Yet, some companies do it by tweaking one tiny thing.

[Written by Stephen Wright] The Bermuda Boxing Federation [BBF] will hold the first in a series of Development League tournaments at Whitney Institute tomorrow [March 9]. The event, which runs from noon to 4 pm, will feature sanctioned fights, masters, celebrity, corporate and charity bouts, and open sparring for elite and youth competitors. Nathan Dill, […]

As Canada's inflation rate continues to slow, the same cannot be said for food prices. Groceries bought at stores are increasing at a pace of 11.4 per cent. And as some economists predict, there's reason to believe food prices could continue to climb because of currency and seasonal reasons. 

The rising cost of what sometimes seems to be everything has been one of the top stories this year. And the most expensive time of the year is now here. How have you gotten through the holidays in tough times previously, and what solutions have you come up with this year?

We're into the home stretch ahead of the holiday season, and many Canadians are preparing to carry out their annual traditions or start new ones. What's a new custom you've adopted, or a tired tradition you want to get rid of?

Vandaag is de aftrap van het nieuwe Eredivisie seizoen. Afgelopen jaren hebben er een aantal drastische wijzigingen plaatsgevonden in de doorgifte van deze veelbekeken voetbalwedstrijden. Eerst diverse prijsverhogingen en later het gratis aanbieden van de belangrijkste wedstrijden. Voor de échte sportliefhebber die graag ESPN Compleet kijkt, lopen de tarieven nu verder uiteen dan ooit.

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British producer plays weird with his inspirations on a seductive debut.

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Breaking out of the new New York, a young rap pair of palpable promise.

The composer pair’s love songs well complement the frothy rom-com in question.

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Shipster, a custom shipping integration platform, and Futura Retail Solutions, an advanced retail and warehouse management software, have announced a strategic partnership to target growing omni-channel retail markets.

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Tom Vilsack may not have the name recognition of John Edwards or Richard A. Gephardt, but make no mistake: He wants the job badly.

In barely eight months, Arnold Schwarzenegger has defied the naysayers and found an elixir more potent than Botox for an aging action star: political success.

 Donald Trump promises to sign an Executive Order on day one of his new term abolishing Birthright Citizenship. This will trigger litigation thar promises to land in Trump's Supreme Court for final adjudication, Assuming Trump prevails there, the GOP already introduced a Bill to abolish Birthright Citizenship legislatively. JD Vance co-sponsored that Bill. This amounts to an historically unprecedented assault on virtually every American's Citizenship. 

Amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to clarify that no child is eligible for birthright citizenship if their parents are unlawfully present in the United States, present in the U.S. for diplomatic purposes, or engaged in a hostile operation against the U.S.

Notably, the Act proposed by Vance includes no limitation on this "clarification" of who enjoys citizenship and who does not. The Act includes no limitation on retroactive effect and lacks any express limitation providing for prospective impact only. The Constitution only proscribes retroactive criminal sanctions The intent of the Act is to correct errors in prior interpretations of the scope of the Fourteenth Amendment. 

More broadly, the GOP assault on virtually everyone's citizenship seeks to maximize the power of the next Trump Administration to round-up citizens, as discussed in my prior blog post. As such, this amounts to the greatest power-grab of rights over American citizens in history.

 

 

No President nor nominee in US history so openly and brazenly pursued a fascist dictatorship like Donald Trump does today. In fact, many of Trump's own handpicked senior advisers from his first term as President issue urgent warnings today about Trump's drive to dictatorship. For example:

1)    TRUMP'S LONGEST SERVING CHIEF OF STAFF MARINE GENERAL JOHN KELLY

John Kelly enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1970, and was discharged as a sergeant in 1972. Following college graduation in 1976, he returned to the Marines as an infantry officer. Kelly rose to Brigadier General and served in Iraq for the better part of 2 years. Kelly deployed again to Iraq in 2008 after promotion to Major General. Ultimately, in his last military post, from 2012 to 2016 he served as a four-star general leading the United States Southern Command, the unified combatant command responsible for American military operations in Central America, South America, and the Caribbean.

President Trump appointed Kelly the Secretary of Homeland Security in 2017. Trump promoted Kelly to Chief of Staff on July 31, 2017. At the time, Trump called Kelly a "great American" who has "done a spectacular job at Homeland Security" and "been a true star of my administration."

The New York Times published an interview with Kelly, on Oct. 22, 2024, available here. According to General Kelly: “Certainly the former president is in the far-right area, he’s certainly an authoritarian, admires people who are dictators — he has said that. So he certainly falls into the general definition of fascist. . . . He certainly prefers the dictator approach to government.” Further, the General said that "a very big surprise for him was that we were — those of us who were former generals and certainly people still on active duty — that the commitment, the loyalty was to the Constitution, without question, without second thought. That was a big surprise to him that the generals were not loyal to the boss, in this case him.” Trump apparently failed middle school history.

2)      TRUMP'S HANDPICKED CHAIR OF THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF MARK MILLEY

Four star General Mark Milley became the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on September 30, 2019, and served as the nation's highest ranking military officer for four years until September of 2023.  Milley first became a commissioned officer in 1980 after graduating from Princeton University. As chairman, General Milley acted as the principal military advisor to the President of the United States, the Secretary of Defense, the National Security Council and the Homeland Security Council.

When Milley took his oath as Chair, Donald Trump said of his appointee: "In his new role as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Milley will serve as my top military advisor. I have absolute confidence that he will fulfill his duty with the same brilliance and fortitude he has shown throughout his long and very distinguished career."

Today the retired General says of Trump: “He is the most dangerous person ever. [N]ow I realize he’s a total fascist. He is now the most dangerous person to this country, a fascist to the core.” In his retirement speech Milley stated: "“We don’t take an oath to a king, or queen, or tyrant or a dictator, and we don’t take an oath to a wannabe dictator. We don’t take an oath to an individual. We take an oath to the Constitution, and we take an oath to the idea that is America, and we’re willing to die to protect it.”

3)    13 FORMER TRUMP OFFICIALS IN SUPPORT OF THE GENERALS

In the wake of comments from General Kelly (and fully consistent with the comments of General Milley), 13 Trump appointees wrote a letter of support stating:

Donald Trump's disdain for the American military and admiration for dictators like Hitler is rooted in his desire for absolute, unchecked power. This is a man who threw his own Vice President – Mike Pence – at a violent mob in a desperate bid to hold on to power. When Donald Trump says he wants to be a "dictator" on "day one" and deploy the military against American citizens he deems “the enemy from within"--he means it. . . . We did not take the decision to come forward lightly. We are all lifelong Republicans who served our country. However, there are moments in history where it becomes necessary to put country over party. This is one of those moments.

All of these Trump Administration appointees, including many serving in senior positions, worked day-to-day with Trump and witnessed first hand how he governs and how he seeks to accumulate dictatorial powers.

4)     FORMER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE JAMES MATTIS

Four star Marine General James Mattis served as Trump's first handpicked Secretary of Defense, from Trump's inauguration through early 2019. Mattis previously served as a Marine officer starting in 1971, and saw combat in Operation Dessert Storm, Afghanistan and the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

General Mattis posits that Donald Trump is unfit because he places himself above the Constitution. More specifically, Mattis issued a statement after the J6 insurrection that said:

Today’s violent assault on our Capitol, an effort to subjugate American democracy by mob rule, was fomented by Mr. Trump. His use of the Presidency to destroy trust in our election and to poison our respect for fellow citizens has been enabled by pseudo political leaders whose names will live in infamy as profiles in cowardice. Our Constitution and our Republic will overcome this stain and We the People will come together again in our never-ending effort to form a more perfect Union, while Mr. Trump will deservedly be left a man without a country.

Mattis previously levelled serious objections to Trump's fitness as President due to his misconduct in the summer of 2020, in the wake of protests triggered by the police murder of George Floyd. He stated:

Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people—does not even pretend to try. Instead, he tries to divide us. We are witnessing the consequences of three years of this deliberate effort. We are witnessing the consequences of three years without mature leadership. 

5)    FORMER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE MARK ESPER 

After graduating from West Point, Mark Esper joined the United States Army and served during the 1990-91 Gulf War as an officer with the 101st Airborne Division. Former President Trump appointed him as the Secretary of Defense and he assumed office on July 19, 2019.

When asked about the former Generals assertions that Trump seeks to impose a dictatorship Esper stated: "It's hard to say that he doesn't. . . .he certainly has those inclinations. And I think it's something we should be wary about." Esper suggests voters look up the term "fascism" and determine on their own if Trump fits the bill. He also praised the Generals for raising the issue and gave them high marks for integrity and honesty.

The Esper interview with CNN is available here.

6)   FORMER VICE PRESIDENT PENCE

In an extraordinary development, Vice President Mike Pence refuses to endorse Donald Trump for President in election 2024. Pence stated that Trump should never sit in the Oval Office again because Trump put himself and his hold on power above the Constitution. The video above explains his position best.

CONCLUSION

The 18 patriots quoted above all say in unison that Donald Trump cannot rule our country again because he cannot adhere to the Constitution. Instead he will seek extra-Constitutional power and try to rule as a dictator. Trump himself promises to rule as a dictator on Day 1. These warnings come from life-long conservatives and from Trump's hand picked officials at the most senior levels of the Trump Administration. They saw Trump at work in the Oval Office daily--they know much more than us. They risk their lives and the lives of their family. We must heed these unprecedented warnings and take Trump at his word. The Constitution today demands that we all follow the distinguished leaders above and act courageously to protect our Great Constitutional Republic. History will judge us on this most important issue. We must not elect a dictator who promises to "terminate" the Constitution for power.