Colin O'Malley
SpaceX and NASA
On May 30th, SpaceX, in partnership with NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, hopes to launch what will be the first human piloted flight into orbit since 2011. This historic event will also mark another milestone; the first ever piloted launch led by a privately owned and operated company. Unfortunately, weather concerns have already delayed the vetern astronauts Douglas Hurley and Robert Behnken from taking off in SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket originally scheduled to launch on May 27th. However, on Saturday May 30th the flight went off without a hitch as the rocket was launched into the sky to dock with the International Space Station (ISS). Early on May 31st, the Crew Dragon capsule successfully docked thus completing the journey.
In other space news, results from a research center in Antarctica has caused the internet to believe in the existence of a parallel universe that runs completely in reverse to our own. However, this claim has not been accurately proven by those involved in the experiment. The center, known as the Antarctic Impulsive Transient Antenna or ANITA, was designed to detect high-energy neutrinos, primarily from the sun, as they strike atoms in the Antarctic ice.
Neutrinos are subatomic particles like quarks or photons that have an incredibly small mass and thus pass through almost all forms of matter. Neutrinos are one of the least understood subatomic particles hence why ANITA’s research is so crucial. In a strange turn of events though, ANITA received a signal that the neutrinos were actually coming out from the Antarctic ice rather than going down and through it. This phenomena seemed to defy everything known about particle physics and neutrinos as we know them. However, concrete evidence has not been put forward by many of the researchers themselves on the project so it is too difficult to declare it as proof of a parallel universe.
Benjamin Netanyahu on trial
After a couple months of delays, the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, has finally begun to go on trial for his corruption charges. The sitting Prime Minister was indicted back in November and then was asked to stand trial starting in March. However, due to the pandemic, Netanyahu’s justice minister closed most of the court systems within the country. This freeze staved off the PMs trial, but on May 20th, Israeli courts requested his presence in Jerusalem to begin proceedings on May 24th. His specific charges are due to bribery, fraud, and breach of trust across the three corruption cases.
One of the worst charges the Prime Minister faces is his advancement of regulatory benefits worth 1 billion shekels to a media company owned by a friend. The charge also states that the regulatory benefits were given in exchange for favorable news coverage even going so far as to say the Prime Minister could influence word choice and stories covered on the news site. This first proceeding was short lived, finishing in under an hour and essentially consisting of Nethanyahu proclaiming innocence throughout. Under the deal brokered by Nethanyahu and his primary rival in the last election, Benny Gantz, Netanyahu will remain the Prime Minister for 18 months with Benny Gantz as the alternate Prime Minister during that time and this includes during his trial. However, neither Prime Minister will have complete control over the government with each being in charge of certain areas. According to CNN, Gantz has come forward to say that he has the utmost faith that his country will give the Prime Minister a fair trial and he will remain innocent until proven guilty.
