Trump fears that spying on other countries will damage his relationships with Putin and Kim: CNN
September 10, 2019
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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is facing a state ethics complaint after allegedly accepting illegal gifts and donations.
The complaint was filed on Monday by Florida Democratic Chair Nikki Fried.
"Florida law prohibits Ron DeSantis or a member of his immediate family from soliciting or knowingly accepting, directly or indirectly, any gift from a political committee," the complaint states. "On February 21, 2023, Friends of Ron DeSantis paid $235,244.52 to the Four Seasons Resort Palm Beach... Media reports indicated that Ron DeSantis' top donors and supporters gathered at the Four Seasons Resort Palm Beach for a three-day retreat as part of an effort to increase his national profile in advance of an anticipated run for the Republican nomination as President of the United States in 2024."
According to the complaint, Friends of Ron DeSantis is a political action committee formed to promote the governor's anticipated presidential campaign.
MORE FLORIDA NEWS: Florida school bans Ruby Bridges movie after one parent complains
The complaint claims that DeSantis flouted Florida law because Friends of Ron DeSantis spent $235,000 at Four Seasons Palm Beach, $142,000 at Four Seasons Miami, and $11,000 at Dirty French Steakhouse while soliciting support for his 2024 presidential campaign.
DeSantis is also facing a separate ethics complaint from allies of former President Donald Trump.
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Scientists have long known that wild seabirds ingest bits of plastic pollution as they feed, but a study Monday shows the tiny particles don't just clog or transit the stomach but can subvert its complex mix of good and bad bacteria too.
Plastic-infested digestive tracks from two species of Atlantic seabirds, northern fulmars and Cory's shearwaters, showed a decrease of mostly beneficial "indigenous" bacteria and more potentially harmful pathogens.
There was also an increase in antibiotic-resistant and plastic-degrading microbes, researchers reported in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution.
Certain types of microplastic, the findings suggested, may be leeching chemicals that disrupt the birds' so-called gut microbiome.
Microplastics -- produced when plastic products break down in the environment -- are directly and indirectly ingested across most animal food chains.
They can be found in every corner of the world, from the deepest oceans trenches to top of Mount Everest.
In humans, they have been detected in the blood, breast milk and placentas.
The new study supports previous findings that prolonged ingestion of microplastics causes an imbalance of healthy and unhealthy bacteria in the stomach, a condition known as gut dysbiosis.
The implications are far-reaching.
Like humans, birds have evolved with a vast network of microbes, including bacteria, that live in our bodies in communities called microbiomes.
Some microbes cause diseases, but most exist as "friendly" bacteria with a critical role in digestion, immune response and other critical functions.
"There's a symbiosis that goes on -- and that's the case in the seabirds as well as in humans," lead author Gloria Fackelmann of Ulm University in Germany told AFP.
Little is known about the effects of individual microbes on the body.
But overall, a growing body of research points to the harmful impacts of microplastics on animal health.
The tiny particles -- less than five millimeters in diameter -- can cause cell death and allergic reactions in humans.
Chemicals in microplastics have also been linked to increased risks of cancer, reproductive problems, and DNA mutations.
The authors hope the findings in seabirds will spur related studies for humans.
"If this manmade substance could alter our microbiome, I think that should make people think," said Fackelmann.
© 2023 AFP
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Scientists said Monday they have discovered water inside tiny beads of glass scattered across the Moon, suggesting that one day it could be extracted and used by the "explorers of tomorrow".
The Moon was long believed to be dry, but over the last few decades several missions have shown there is water both on the surface and trapped inside minerals.
Mahesh Anand, a professor of planetary science and exploration at the UK's Open University, told AFP that water molecules could be seen "hopping over the lunar surface" when it was sunny.
"But we didn't know where exactly it was coming from," said Anand, a co-author of a new study published in the journal Nature Geoscience.
The study, carried out by a team led by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said that the glass beads are "probably the dominant reservoir involved in the lunar surface water cycle".
The team polished and analyzed 117 glass beads which were scooped up by China's Chang'e-5 spacecraft in December 2020 and brought back to Earth.
The beads are formed by tiny meteorites that bombard the surface of the Moon, which lacks the protection of an atmosphere.
The heat of the impact melts the surface material, which cools into round glass beads around the width of a strand of hair.
As well as finding water in the beads, the scientists detected "a telltale signature of the Sun," Anand said.
Investigating further, they determined that the hydrogen necessary to make up the water was coming from solar wind, which sweeps charged particles across the Solar System.
'Sustainable' source of water?
The other ingredient for water, oxygen, makes up nearly half of the Moon, though it is trapped in rocks and minerals.
This means that solar wind could be equally contributing to water on other bodies in the Solar System lacking an atmosphere, such as Mercury or asteroids, Anand said.
The glass beads may make up around three to five percent of lunar soil, according to the study.
A "back of the envelope" calculation suggested that there could be around a third of a trillion tonnes of water inside all the Moon's glass beads, he added.
And it only takes mild heat of around 100 degrees Celsius (210 Fahrenheit) to liberate the water from the beads, Anand said.
While much more research is needed, he said that heating and processing these materials could supply the "explorers of tomorrow" with water -- or even oxygen -- to help them search "other worlds in a sustainable, responsible manner".
The European Space Agency's robotic drill PROSPECT, scheduled to launch for the Moon in 2025, could be the first to be able to collect and extract water in such a way, Anand said.
NASA's VIPER mission, planned to launch late next year, will head to the Moon's South Pole aiming to analyze water ice.
And in the coming years NASA's Artemis mission plans to return humans to the lunar surface for the first time since 1972.
© 2023 AFP
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