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Supergiant star Betelgeuse has been getting dimmer at an unprecedented pace over the past few months, leading some astronomers to wonder if it might be in the process of the collapse that precedes a supernova explosion. But there are other possible explanations, and we should have a better idea of what's happening to the massive star by the end of the month. Betelgeuse has no more than about 100,000 years left to burn and could start its death throes just about anytime between now and then. When it does go supernova, it's expected to result in a dramatic light show...

"Even if this story were made up from start to finish, even if there had been no Panfilov, even if there had been nothing at all,"... "this is a sacred legend, which simply cannot be touched. And those who do so are washed-up scumbags." Russia's culture minister has revealed historical records that he claims prove the authenticity of a World War II legend largely debunked by historians, delivering the latest salvo in a long-running dispute that challenges the official narrative of the Soviet Union's war experience. Commonly referred to as "Panfilov's 28 men," the legend is among the most controversial...

...Dimitrios Pagourtzis was wearing a jacket with the ANTIFA terrorist hammer-and-sickle emblem. They sell these Antifa stars on Amazon.

Trump posted a comment of the red star controversy a couple of hours ago on Twitter, so I guess the liberal media is pushing this nonsense for all it's worth. I've been doing armchair semiotical studies, researching insignia, signs, & symbols for over a day now, and could only find one match to the red star posted in a Trump tweet. And it's an exact match. It's the insignia of the U.S. Army 6th Infantry Division, especially in WWII.

I have some very disappointing news for some of the more-virulent foes of sane gun-control legislation. If you’re what the National Rifle Association loves to call a “law-abiding American citizen,” no one is going to take away your guns.

SNIPPET: "Social media is no longer simply a fun way to share updates on the harmless idiosyncrasies of our lives. It can undermine national security, and there ought to be a more robust discussion between the Bay Area technology world and Washington on what to do about it. Cyber-terrorism, especially the potential for electronic tampering with U.S. industrial or military installations, is a paramount national security threat that Washington is working to forestall. We're all working to protect our accounts from hackers. But the cyber-threat getting far less public attention involves the social media networks we use every day and the...

Sarah Palin’s favorability ratings are slipping! Her favorability ratings are slipping! That’s what you hear from The Des Moines Register today in their latest release of the Iowa Poll. Tom Beaumont reports a drop from 71% to 65% in the last 15 months.

Crash it! Tue. April 7, 2009 Drinking Liberally | New York, NY | Presented by (Le) Poisson Rouge Minimum age for this event is: 21+ Venue Information Le Poisson Rouge 158 Bleecker Street New York, NY US 10012 212-505-FISH General Admission Tue. Apr 7th, 2009 Doors @ 6:00 PM Event @ 6:00 PM This is a free event in the LPR Gallery Bar. No ticket is required.

The Minneapolis Star Tribune filed a Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition Thursday night. The filing had been anticipated for several months. It follows missed payments to the paper’s lenders, and comes less than two years after a private equity group, Avista Capital Partners, purchased the paper for $530 million. In its filing, the newspaper listed assets of $493.2 million and liabilities of $661.1 million. The company said it hopes to use bankruptcy to restructure its debt and lower its labor costs. Like most newspapers, the Star Tribune has experienced a sharp decline in print advertising. Its earnings before interest, taxes and...

Get ready for a Star Tribune bankruptcy filing. The newsroom's Newspaper Guild announced today they had ended negotiations with management over concessions. The Strib's owners have said that unless all Strib's unions agree to a specific list of cutbacks, they will file for bankruptcy. Says Guild co-chair Graydon Royce, "We tried to work this out and this didn't happen. All we can do is go by what they have said, and that [bankruptcy] is what they said will happen. So we'll find out." Strib publisher Chris Harte has backed away from previous, more subtle bankruptcy threats, but few expect that...

For anyone following the occurence of the Red star on Obama merchandise on democratnationalcommittee.com, THE RED STARS ARE GONE!!! I'm not sure exactly what that means, but I do know that the parent company that posts the site is owned by a former Republican Representative from Iowa! Take it for what it's worth... was it a private slam on Obama? That's my take on it. I could share more, but it would serve no good purpose. So, whether it was just a design that meant nothing or if it was a personal message we may never know!

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Star "The red star.The five-pointed red star, a pentagram without the inner pentagon, is a symbol of communism as well as broader socialism in general. It is sometimes understood to represent the five fingers of the worker's hand, as well as the five continents." (this is an exerpt) There's a lot of questions going around about the red star signs and the like that are showing up on democratnationalcommittee.com. They state on their site that they are independent of the Democrat National Committee, but why are they so free to place the communist/socialist red star...

MINNEAPOLIS, May 13 — Last Thursday afternoon, more than a hundred employees of The Star Tribune in Minneapolis took to the small park across the street, many of then dressed in black or wearing black armbands in what they said was an act of mourning. “It is such a beautiful day out here and I wish we had something to celebrate. But as you all know, these have been very dark times at The Star Tribune,” said Jaime Chismar, unit chairwoman of the Newspaper Guild, her voice halting with emotion as she stood on a concrete bench with a bullhorn....

...This likely comes as a surprise to each of you," Publisher Keith Moyer acknowledged during a late-afternoon staff meeting. "These are indeed challenging times for newspapers, especially larger ones, such as ours," Moyer said. Speaking to the Star Tribune staff Tuesday, an Avista executive said the firm was drawn to the Star Tribune by its dominant market share in the Twin Cities. The Star Tribune, which has been in operation under different names and owners for nearly 140 years, had 40 percent of the Twin Cities advertising market in the third quarter. "I'm here today because my partners at Avista...

The Star Tribune is being sold to a private equity firm for $530 million, the companies involved announced in a press release today. The sale to Avista Capital Partners comes eight years after The McClatchy Company purchased the Star Tribune from Cowles Media Company for $1.2 billion. The text of the press release follows. The Star Tribune is being sold by The McClatchy Company to private equity firm Avista Capital Partners, McClatchy and Avista announced today. The companies say they have a definitive agreement to sell the Star Tribune for $530 million to Avista, which has offices in New York...

After almost five years at the Star Tribune, our editor, Anders Gyllenhaal, has been called to a new challenge: to be the executive editor of the Miami Herald, another McClatchy newspaper and the paper where, earlier in his career, he earned a good many of his journalistic stripes. As Anders said in a note to the newsroom: "I want you to know this has been a very difficult decision that has kept me awake many nights. In the end, my family and I decided to take a kind of homecoming, returning to the place where Beverly and I met, where...

MINNEAPOLIS — The Star Tribune said it is reviewing a year's worth of work by one of its editorial-page writers after finding two of his editorials contained similarities to the work of another writer. Editorial-page editor Susan Albright said the writer, Steve Berg, would not write during the review. She cited two editorials, one from Nov. 10 and one from March 27 that contained phrases from or similarities to commentaries in the New Yorker by Hendrik Hertzberg. "We want you to know that we are taking this matter very seriously," Albright wrote in a note to readers published Thursday. "We...

DFL U.S. Senate candidate Amy Klobuchar continues to hold a dominant lead over GOP rival Mark Kennedy, 56 to 32 percent, in the latest Minnesota Poll, a margin similar to the one she had in July. Independence Party candidate Robert Fitzgerald remains at 3 percent; other candidates garnered less than 1 percent. A sense by many that the nation is on the wrong track, mounting disapproval of President Bush and an energized DFL base all appear to be factors in the gap between Klobuchar and Kennedy. Klobuchar is ahead of Kennedy in virtually every demographic category that the poll measured...

There they go again. No sooner had Keith Ellison been declared the winner in the DFL primary and Minneapolis' likely next member of Congress than Republicans launched a smear campaign intended not only to smudge Ellison but, by association, every Democrat on the DFL ticket. Here are some of the words, delivered with ample emotion, that came from the mouth of Ellison's Republican opponent, words unlikely to have originated in Alan Fine's heart but more likely crafted by some young Beltway piranha typing away on behalf of Karl Rove's dark national machine:

The ties that bind 17 suspects? ANALYSIS | `They represent the broad strata of our community,' the RCMP says. Jun. 4, 2006. 07:15 AM SURYA BHATTACHARYA, NASREEN GULAMHUSEIN AND HEBA ALY STAFF REPORTERS In investigators' offices, an intricate graph plotting the links between the 17 men and teens charged with being members of a homegrown terrorist cell covers at least one wall. And still, says a source, it is difficult to find a common denominator.