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LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Michigan will build clean energy infrastructure and invest in green programs over the next 30 years with the goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2050 to confront climate change, a draft of a state plan says. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer committed Michigan to the 2050 goal in 2020 and formed the Council on Climate Solutions in the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy. A large portion of Michigan’s greenhouse gas emissions come from electrical power and transportation, the draft notes. To reach the 2050 goal of carbon neutrality, the plan would have the state convert...

The improved eForms platform launched by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) to review and process ATF Forms 1,2,3,4,5,6,6A,9,10 and 5300.11 applications online, is finding implementation bugs. This is expected in the major launch of any large software system. The new, improved, modernized eForms system at the ATF was rolled out on December 23, 2021. The American Suppressor Association said it was the biggest technological jump in the process since the fax machine. From the association:We’re very excited about the launch of the much anticipated new eForms system. This represents the largest technological jump for NFA since...

LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — The interim vice provost for diversity at the University of Kansas has resigned after acknowledging that a message he sent out to the campus on Martin Luther King Jr. Day was largely plagiarized. D.A. Graham’s resignation was accepted Wednesday and is effective immediately, Provost Barbara Bichelmeyer said. Graham, interim vice provost of diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging, told the Lawrence Journal-World on Monday that he didn’t intentionally plagiarize the “2022 MLK Jr. Day of Reflection” text he sent to all faculty, staff and students. “It was an oversight on my part,” Graham said. “I was trying...

A set of lengthy silver and gold tubes dug up from a famous grave in the the Caucuses have been found to represent the oldest surviving drinking straws, with the scientists behind the discovery believing they were used for communal beer consumption. The specimens are 5,000 years old and help deepen our understanding of drinking culture in ancient hierarchical societies. The set of eight tubes was unearthed back in 1987 in the Maikop Kurgan burial mound, a famous grave for Bronze Age elites in the Northern Caucasus. Researchers had since concluded the meter-plus-long tubes to be poles for a canopy,...

Sometimes it is useful to stop a moment and consider how your enemies think. We make fun of how insane they are on a regular basis but consider for a moment how they appeal to their voters. What themes and messages do they think resonate? I don't know why, but somehow the DCCC got my phone number and thought I was a good target for fundraising. So I received their pitch to raise money for congressional campaigns. This is an interesting look into what they consider to be winning messages. President Barack Obama just broke his silence and called on...

A team of researchers has discovered a possible reason why L-dopa, the front-line drug for treating Parkinson's disease, loses efficacy and causes dyskinesia—involuntary, erratic muscle movements of the patient's face, arms, legs and torso—as treatment progresses. "Paradoxically, the exact therapy that improved the quality of life for tens of thousands of Parkinson's patients is the one that contributes to the rapid decline in quality of life over time," said Amal Alachkar, Ph.D. "L-dopa has been shown to accelerate disease progression through neural mechanisms that are not very well understood." L-dopa and other pharmacological treatments for Parkinson's are designed to replace...

"The purpose of this drill is to strengthen security and its foundations in the region, and to expand multilateral cooperation between the three countries to jointly support world peace, maritime security and create a maritime community with a common future," the Iranian official told ISNA. Both navies from Iran's armed forces and Revolutionary Guards will take part in the drills, which include various tactical exercises such as rescuing a burning vessel, releasing a hijacked vessel, and shooting at air targets at night.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — Three parents of children who attend public schools in West Virginia have filed a lawsuit challenging the state’s private school voucher law. The suit filed Wednesday in Kanawha County Circuit Court contends the law violates the state Constitution and will siphon money away from public education, news outlets reported. The law was enacted earlier this year and creates a publicly funded savings accounts program called the Hope Scholarship that plans to begin accepting applications in March. The law allows state money to be put into a special account that parents could then spend on private school...

A group of researchers has launched the first-ever archaeological study of humans in space, observing the lives of the crew living on the International Space Station. The experiment, which will analyze and document the unique "microsociety in a miniworld," began this week with associate professors Alice Gorman from Flinders University in Australia and Justin Walsh of Chapman University in California leading the effort. "We're the first to try to understand how humans relate to the items they live with in space," Walsh said in a statement. He added: "By bringing archaeological perspectives to an active space domain, we're the first...

ST. LOUIS (AP) — A domestic assault suspect was freed from jail after testing positive for COVID-19, despite being deemed dangerous enough that prosecutors wanted him held without a chance of bail, the attorney for the St. Louis Police Officers Association said. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that the 36-year-old man was released on Jan. 4 and has not been re-arrested. Police association lawyer Jane Dueker said the release was part of a recent policy by the administration of Mayor Tishaura Jones to limit the spread of COVID-19 in the downtown jail by not admitting people with the virus. Messages...

Caitlyn Jenner has called on the National Collegiate Athletic Association to immediately stop transgender athletes like UPenn swimmer Lia Thomas from competing against their biological counterparts. Jenner said there was no doubt that the rules need to be changed just as the NCAA Board of Governors were meeting to review rules on transgender athletes. "All of this woke world that we are living in right now is not working", said Jenner. "I feel sorry for the other athletes that are out there, especially at Penn or anybody she's competing against, because in the woke world, you've got to say, 'Oh,...

I don’t normally share anything personal but this my dad from a while back explaining to my daughter he signed the Beatles. Ordinary people do extraordinary things. Great decisions are made for the simplest reasons. “I figured if I like them this much other people might too”

It's not about the facts. It’s about the narrative, even if it’s on life support. Even after it suffers brain death, you must peddle the talking points that aim only to make liberals feel better about their crappy political opinions. That’s CNN’s job. MSNBC is the classic back-alley hooker for that too—they always seek to satisfy their customers. The COVID vaccine wars are over. The messaging is over. American who wanted the vaccine have already received it And even those people aren’t rushing to get boosted with tens of millions remaining eligible for that additional shot. Those who are unvaccinated...

A research team discovered that orally administrated bismuth drug colloidal bismuth subcitrate (CBS) together with N-acetyl cysteine (NAC) could be a broad-spectrum anti-coronavirus cocktail therapy. Oral administration of the cocktail suppresses the replication cycle of the virus, reduces viral loads in the lung and ameliorates virus-induced pneumonia in a hamster infection model. Not only could NAC stabilize bismuth-containing metallodrugs at stomach-like conditions but also enhance the uptake of bismuth drugs in tissues (e.g. lung) and antiviral potency through oral administration. Bismuth subsequently suppressed virus replication of a panel of clinically relevant coronaviruses, including Middle East respiratory syndrome-related coronavirus (MERS-CoV), Human...

Last week’s eruption of the volcano near the Pacific island nation of Tonga was 600 times more powerful than the nuke dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, in World War II. As a result, the eruption was so loud that many Tongans went deaf after the first explosion. “The first explosion…our ears were ringing and we couldn’t even hear each other, so all we do is pointing to our families to get up, get ready to run,” Marian Kupu, a journalist on Tonga, told Reuters. The eruption was so loud that it could be heard across the world, even thousands of miles...

CNN hosts scrambled to explain away Joe Biden’s remark during his car crash of a press conference when he said that the 2022 mid-term elections could be “illegitimate.” Former President Donald Trump was vehemently monstered by the media both in 2016 and 2020 for suggesting the election outcome could be compromised. Following the riot on January 6 last year, Trump’s so-called undermining of the election process was blamed for the raid on the Capitol itself. Tens of millions of Trump supporters who believe the 2020 election was rigged have also been denounced as everything from dangerous radicals to domestic terrorists....

Shoppers will get personalized recommendations pushed to their phones as they browse the new Amazon Style store stocked mostly non-Amazon fashion labels, the Seattle based company said. Amazon declined to offer any more details on the labels. The store will be about 30,000 square feet, similar in size to a Kohl’s but about one-third the size of other department stores, like Macy’s. But it will offer more than double the number of styles as traditional stores do because it will show one of each style on display while keeping the rest in the back room. The selection is chosen by...

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Accusing the United States of hostility and threats, North Korea on Thursday said it will consider restarting “all temporally-suspended activities” it had paused during its diplomacy with the Trump administration, in an apparent threat to resume testing of nuclear explosives and long-range missiles. North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency said leader Kim Jong Un presided over a Politburo meeting of the ruling Workers’ Party where officials set policy goals for “immediately bolstering” military capabilities to counter the Americans’ “hostile moves.” Officials gave instructions to “reconsider in an overall scale the trust-building measures that we...

At some of the world’s most sensitive spots, authorities have installed security screening devices made by a single Chinese company with deep ties to China’s military and the highest levels of the ruling Communist Party. The World Economic Forum in Davos. Europe’s largest ports. Airports from Amsterdam to Athens. NATO’s borders with Russia. All depend on equipment manufactured by Nuctech, which has quickly become the world’s leading company, by revenue, for cargo and vehicle scanners. Nuctech has been frozen out of the U.S. for years due to national security concerns, but it has made deep inroads across Europe, installing its...

WASHINGTON — Mayor Lori Lightfoot said GOP candidates for governor, making crime — especially in Chicago — central campaign themes should think twice about damaging the city’s reputation. “Vilifying the economic engine of your state just strikes me as a really foolhardy strategy,” she told the Chicago Sun-Times on Wednesday. Lightfoot said there are “definitely productive ways in which a governor can be helpful. But anybody who thinks that they’re going to solve crime by sitting in Springfield and lobbing bombs obviously doesn’t understand the first thing about public safety.”