There may be a prisoner swap

Former President Donald Trump spoke at the RNC Convention, just days after he was wounded in an assassination attempt

'I think I’m leaning toward Trump'

There wasnt even blood

A post shared on social media purportedly shows that President Joe Biden ignored a Black woman in the audience when he was greeting attendees at his rally. Verdict: False The full video shows Biden exchanging a handshake and hug with the woman. Fact Check: The White House announced recently that Biden has contracted Covid-19 and the […]

Scientists have developed a way to dramatically reduce the cost of recycling certain electronic waste by using whey protein. Their method allows for the easy recovery of gold from circuit boards at a cost of energy and materials amounting to 50 times less than the price of the gold they recover—these are the numbers that […] The post Eco-Friendly Sponges Made of Dairy Byproduct Can Extract Gold from Old Computer Parts appeared first on Good News Network.

Books Young Adult Spotlight Most Anticipated Young Adult SFF/H for July & August 2024 Horror, romantasy, and of course, VAMPIRES! Check out the best upcoming YA titles. By Alex Brown | Published on July 19, 2024 Comment 0 Share New Share Some interesting things happening in the young adult speculative market this summer. Horror is still alive and kicking, and the stories just keep getting wilder. On the other hand, pretty much all fantasy is now being marketed as “romantasy,” so good luck to anyone trying to define that genre label into anything useful. If you were hoping for some sci-fi, the best I can offer you are a couple of genre-benders and some superheroes. On the plus side: vampires are back, baby!  Vampire Chronicles The Ones Who Come Back Hungry by Amelinda BérubéJo’s sister Audrey is the star of the family, until she dies suddenly. And just as suddenly, she’s back from the grave, with an oozing autopsy wound and an insatiable hunger for blood. As Jo steps into Audrey’s recently vacated role—joining her friend group and flirting with her ex-boyfriend—she also tries to find a cure to her sister’s increasingly bloodthirsty situation. Toxic family relationships with a vampire twist. (Sourcebooks Fire; July 2, 2024) Castle of the Cursed by Romina GarberEstela is the lone survivor from a terrible, unexplained event that killed her parents. After a stint in a mental hospital, she’s sent to live in her aunt’s ancestral family home, a castle in the Spanish countryside. There she meets the enigmatic Sebastián. There she encounters strange happenings and dark secrets. There she realizes that discovering the truth of what happened to her parents may turn out to be worse than not knowing. (Wednesday Books; July 30, 2024) This Ravenous Fate by Hayley Dennings (This Ravenous Fate #1)The first in a duology from a debut author, this book tweaks the vampire mythos. It’s 1926 and Harlem is brimming with Jazz Age magic and mayhem. Elise, recently returned from Paris, is the heir to a mob empire that makes cash hand over fist hunting reapers. Layla, one of said reapers, is still nursing a grudge over Elise’s role in her getting turned. A series of murders forces the two young women to work together, turning enemies into lovers. (Sourcebooks Fire; August 6, 2024) Genre-benders The Second Chance of Darius Logan by David F. WalkerSixteen year old Darius has spent much of his life bouncing around between shelters and foster homes. Years ago, Earth was attacked by aliens, and although the planet was saved by the superhero team Super Justice Force, his parents died in the invasion. After he gets caught selling drugs, Captain Freedom, the leader of the supes, offers him a trade: instead of jail, he must join a rehab program working with the Force. Can he make something new with his life now that he has a second chance? (Scholastic Press; July 2, 2024) Grief in the Fourth Dimension by Jennifer YuKenny Zhou and Caroline Davison are dead. But also still alive? Kinda? The two high school seniors wake up in a white room with almost nothing in it but a giant television. They’re also not alone. Something or someone seems to be watching them. When they realize they can influence the world of the living, they decide to use their powers to help their families. Although Kenny and Caroline couldn’t be more different, the strange circumstances pull them together. (Amulet Books; July 16, 2024) Gallows Humor Here Lies a Vengeful Bitch by Codie CrowleyAnnie Lane isn’t well liked in her home town. Too crass, too rough, too bad. Until one day she wakes up dead in a river on Resurrection Peak. Her best friend is also missing. Ghosts haunt her town, and a team of fellow spirited misfits join her to help her figure out whodunit. Annie wants revenge, and she’ll get it even if it takes her entire Afterlife. This is giving me Lisa Frankenstein meets Undead Girl Gang vibes. Into it. (Disney Hyperion; August 6, 2024) Helga by Catherine YuWhen her father created her, Helga was supposed to be a docile, compliant automaton. Instead, she’s a curious, excitable, eager young woman chafing under his rule. As soon as he leaves for a two week work trip, Helga escapes her minder and heads into the teeming, tumultuous Amaris City. A tempestuous relationship with a boy who isn’t who he seems is balanced by new friends ready to show Helga the world, but an impending volcanic implosion puts a damper on things. A little bit Frankenstein, a little bit Poor Things, a little bit seminal 1997 disaster movie Volcano. (Page Street YA; August 20, 2024) Thrills & Chills Portrait of a Shadow by Meriam MetouiWhen her sister Inez vanishes without a trace, Mae sets out to find her. At her Brooklyn apartment, she discovers an unsettling painting, all white except for a peeling corner. Why did Inez have this strange thing? And what is underneath the white paint? Dev, the boy next door, offers to assist Mae in tracking down Inez, but there’s something off about him, something Mae can’t quite put her finger on. (Henry Holt & Company; July 16, 2024) The Dark We Know by Wen-yi LeeArt student Isadora left home at sixteen to escape her isolated hometown and abusive father. Now that he’s dead, she plans to return just long enough to collect her inheritance and polish her portfolio. Mason, a friend she abandoned when she left, convinces her to help him investigate the disappearance and deaths of other kids they grew up with. Something wicked is lurking in Isa’s hometown, and whatever it is, it has a connection to her. (Gillian Flynn Books; August 13, 2024) Hocus Pocus A Magic Fierce and Bright by Hemant NayakFour hundred years in the future, technomancer Adya is caught between colonizer forces and family struggles. Her sister, Priya, left home to use her magic to help defeat the invading British army, but when she gets into trouble, Adya makes some risky decisions to try and save her. A new ally, who has plans of his own, helps her escape the clutches of a local crime lord. To stop the colonization of her homeland, Adya must use her rare magic in ways she never imagined. (Simon & Schuster BYR; July 9, 2024) So Witches We Became by Jill BaguchinskyNell is looking forward to spending the final spring break of high school with her friends on a private island in Florida, but the secrets from her painful past follow her. Tensions flare as personalities clash, made worse when a sinister mist surrounds the island. Something hunts the teens from within the mist, and the things Nell desperately wants to forget are clawing their way out of her. (Little, Brown BYR; July 23, 2024) Anthologies The White Guy Dies First: 13 Scary Stories of Fear and Power by edited by Terry J. Benton-WalkerI don’t need to know a single thing more about this anthology beyond the title. Sold. Here’s my money. But in case you, for whatever reason, need more enticement, this is a collection of stories where, instead of the trope of a character of color dying first in a horror movie, this time it’s the white guy. YA social horror is having quite the moment. Authors include: Adiba Jaigirdar, Alexis Henderson, Chloe Gong, Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé, H. E. Edgmon, Kalynn Bayron, Karen Strong, Kendare Blake, Lamar Giles, Mark Oshiro, Naseem Jamnia, Tiffany D. Jackson, and Terry J. Benton-Walker. (Tor Teen; July 16, 2024) The House Where Death Lives by edited by Alex BrownThis is a book about a house. Not just any house, but one filled with magic dark and strange. Each of the sixteen stories are set in a different room. Spanning different genres and themes, this haunted house anthology will leave you cowering under the covers. Authors include: Alex Brown, Nova Ren Suma, Gina Chen, Traci Chee, Linsey Miller, Rosiee Thor, Courtney Gould, Kay Costales, Liz Hull, Shelly Page, Justine Pucella Winans, Sandra Proudman, C.L. McCollum, Nora Elghazzawi, Tori Bovalino, and g. haron davis. (Page Street YA; August 6, 2024) Magic with a Twist The Lost Souls of Benzaiten by Kelly MurashigeAfter her friends drop her, Machi stops speaking. Her therapist sends the lonely teen to a Shinto shrine where she makes a wish to be turned into a robot vacuum cleaner. Why be human when it sucks so much? Benzaiten, a god of fortune, takes pity on Machi. The two head out into the world of the living and the dead to help Machi rediscover her faith in humanity and herself. (Soho Teen; July 23, 2024) The Girl with No Reflection by Keshe ChowPrincess Ying Yue was prepared for an arranged marriage. What she didn’t expect was a prince who was indifferent to her at best, hostile at worst. Locked away in her chambers with only a maid and her reflection to keep her company, she spends the days leading up to her wedding fretting over the fates of the seven previous brides who were never heard from again. The night before the big day, she’s sucked into the mirror. The Mirror Prince is everything his counterpart is not, but this new world holds dangerous secrets. (Delacorte Press; August 6, 2024) The Maid and the Crocodile by Jordan IfuekoWith no family and no friends, Small Sade is alone in the bustling metropolis of Oluwan. She has vitiligo and uses a cane, disabilities that others may see as a sign of weakness but that she has learned to survive with in a world that doesn’t accommodate her. She also has the magical power to destroy curses. That ability that lands her a job in the estate of the Crocodile God who is suffering under an unbreakable curse. This is a standalone story set in the same world as the Raybearer series. (Amulet Books; August 13, 2024) Ghost Stories Trespass Against Us by Leon KempTwo years ago, four teens snuck into Saint Dominic Savio’s School for Troubled Youth, an abandoned reform school with a brutal past. Only three made it back out. Riley, Colton, and Vee are scarred, literally and psychologically. A documentary filmmaker and ghost hunter pays them to return to the scene of the crime, and things go even worse the second time around. Whatever is haunting the school has been waiting for them all this time. (Harperteen; July 16, 2024) Come Out, Come Out by Natalie C. ParkerFive years ago, Fern, Jaq, and Mallory found refuge in their little queer found family. One night while taking a break from the outside world in an abandoned house, Mal vanishes. Neither Fern nor Jaq have any memories of that night…until now. While at a high school graduation party in the woods, the two closeted teens encounter a spirit who looks an awful lot like Mal. Something terrible happened all those years ago, and it’s about to happen again. (G.P. Putnam’s Sons BYR; August 27, 2024) [end-mark] The post Most Anticipated Young Adult SFF/H for July & August 2024 appeared first on Reactor.

Government workers are reportedly in a state of panic over the prospect of former President Donald Trump winning another term in office, according to E&E News. Bureaucrats up and down the federal hierarchy are concerned that a second Trump administration could cost them their jobs and put an end to liberal programs they worked to implement under President Joe Biden, E&E News reported. Trump has, if elected, pledged to implement reforms that would allow him to fire up to 50,000 civil servants at will, with the former president singling out workers who are incompetent, unnecessary or undermine his democratic mandate. “The first rendition of the Trump administration was really, really difficult, and we saw a mass exodus of employees retiring,” a National Park Service employee told E&E News. “If we do have an administration shift, other employees will also reconsider their positions and move to the private sector. I don’t know what I’ll end up doing.” Of the civil servants that didn’t exit during Trump’s first term, many worked internally to deliberately obstruct his agenda, according to Miles Taylor, who served as chief of staff in the Department of Homeland Security from 2017 to 2019 and admitted to engaging in such behavior. Bureaucrats are worried that Trump may seek to appoint administrators who agree with his agenda this time around. “He’s going to get people in place that are more intelligent and are more loyal to him,” a park service employee said. “Now I think he could do a lot of damage.” To replace large numbers of federal employees, Trump would reclassify them as Schedule F employees, allowing him to fire them at will. The Biden administration finalized a rule in April that would prevent their status from being changed involuntarily, however, allies of the former president have shrugged off the rule by pointing out that a Trump administration could simply reverse it, according to The New York Times. Amid fear that Trump’s plans may come to fruition, bureaucrats are making moves to ensure the Biden administration’s policies are as hard to repeal as possible, a senior employee at the Interior Department told E&E News. “The concern hasn’t been focused on who the Democratic nominee is as much as concerns about Trump winning and what that would mean,” they said. “From everyone’s perspective it is get as much done as possible. Also trying to bury into the agency programs [like environmental justice] so they can survive a Trump administration.” Conservatives are increasingly optimistic about Trump’s chances of defeating Biden in November as the president lags behind Trump in the polls and the Democratic Party grapples with internal disputes regarding whether or not he should be their nominee. “The mood is somber and incredulous,” one long-time employee of the Department of the Interior told E&E News. “The hope is we will not suffer through another term with the prior leadership, but the fear [is] that if we do, they will target employees they don’t like, make things up to justify whatever punishment they want and just cripple the good work we are doing.” Staff at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), meanwhile, are also upset and agitated, the president of a union representing some of the agency’s employees told E&E News. “So many of our members lived through the absolutely disastrous first Trump administration and his attempted dismantling of EPA,” she said. Originally published by The Daily Caller News Foundation. The post ‘Really, Really Difficult’: Bureaucrats Worry Behind Closed Doors They’ll Be Sent Packing Under Trump appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Thoughts on the Convention and Donald Trump

Cephalopods are always full of surprises that push the boundaries of what we think we know about animal life – and few are more fascinating than the octopus squid (Octopoteuthis deletron), a deep-sea loner with removable limbs and a strong tendency towards same-sex behavior. Most squids have a total of 10 appendages, consisting of eight arms and two long tentacles. However, as octopus squid mature, their two feeding tentacles are reabsorbed into their bodies, leaving them with just eight appendages.Some individual octopus squid have even fewer arms, though. They are one of the only known squids to purposefully lose one of their arms as a way to escape a predator, a bit like how lizards can ditch their tail if it's been grabbed by a bird. They’re also capable of regenerating the lost limb, a remarkable trait that only a few animal groups possess.A 2012 study observed 84 individual O. deletron using remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) and found that 17 (27 percent) of them had at least one partially missing arm. The researchers even directly witnessed this behavior, called autotomy, when the squids made contact with their ROV and shed their limbs in a panic.   An octopus squid (Octopoteuthis deletron) observed by MBARI's remotely operated vehicle (ROV) Doc Ricketts in Monterey Canyon at a depth of approximately 540 meters (1,772 feet).Image courtesy of MBARI; © 2019 MBARIThey’re typically seen in the Northeastern Pacific Ocean off the coast of Washington to Baja California. Per the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI), the species lives at depths of up to 1,000 meters (3,300 feet) in the twilight (mesopelagic) zone during the daytime. When the sun goes down, they rise to the surface at depths of 500 meters (1,600 feet) to feed.Like many deep-sea inhabitants, there’s plenty we don’t know about octopus squid, such as their diet. It’s evident, however, that the species is preyed upon by a host of different animals, including whales, sharks, and even seabirds.To avoid becoming someone else’s dinner, O. deletron can change color, a behavior that’s common in cephalopods that live in shallow waters, but not so typical in deep-dwelling species. They achieve this through specialized cells in their skin called chromatophores, which contain sacs of pigment that can be expanded or contracted by the action of surrounding muscle cells, allowing rapid changes in color and pattern. Cephalopods can also shift their appearance using cells called iridophores, which reflect light to produce iridescent colors through structural interference, as well as leucophores, which scatter light and increase their brightness.                     Another trick up their sleeve is a light-producing organ that sits at the end of each arm, used to bedazzle prey, illuminate their surroundings, or perhaps woo potential mates.Speaking of mating, their solitary lives lead them to develop some fairly fascinating sexual behavior. O. deletron is particularly unique because it exhibits same-sex behavior as commonly as opposite-sex sexual behavior, according to a 2011 study.To reproduce, the squid uses a modified arm to effectively shoot a packet of sperm into the flesh of the partner, where it remains until the female can fertilize its eggs. However, it appears that the octopus squid is indiscriminate with who it attempts to inseminate and will often fire a sperm packet at fellow males. In the lonely depths of the ocean, you can’t miss your shot.“This is a solitary species that is not very abundant; it lives in deep, dark waters where opportunities for reproduction are few and far between. In response to that challenge, this reproductive strategy ensures that no opportunity for successful mating is lost. It’s kind of like buying a Lotto ticket, except the odds are much better," Bruce Robison, a co-author of the study and deep-sea ecologist at MBARI, said in a statement.