Month: August 2018

Enlarge / The large Barren Ridge solar panel array near Mojave, California. (Photo by George Rose/Getty Images) (credit: Getty Images)

On Wednesday evening, California's Senate passed SB 100, a bill mandating that utilities serving the state move to 100 percent carbon-free energy by 2045. If the Governor signs the bill into law, it will become one of the most most aggressive in the nation, matching only Hawaii's carbon-free by 2045 commitment.

California's bill specifies that any energy obtained outside the state can not contribute to additional greenhouse gas emissions from that state. The stipulation preemptively closes a potential loophole in which California could acquire cheap energy from polluting plants in border states.

The bill also ratchets up the California's previous carbon-free energy plan, such that the state will have to move to 60 percent carbon-free energy by 2030 rather than 50 percent by 2030.

The meme that launched a veritable fleet of investigations. (credit: Kevin Lamarque / Getty Images)

The Federal Bureau of Investigations issued a terse statement today regarding President Donald J. Trump's allegation via Twitter that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's private mail server had been compromised by the Chinese government. The official statement, issued by an FBI spokesperson in response to an inquiry by NBC News, simply read, "The FBI has not found any evidence the servers were compromised"—referring to the three email servers used by Clinton during and after her tenure at the State Department.

Just after midnight this morning—apparently in response to a Daily Caller article—Trump tweeted:

Hillary Clinton’s Emails, many of which are Classified Information, got hacked by China. Next move better be by the FBI & DOJ or, after all of their other missteps (Comey, McCabe, Strzok, Page, Ohr, FISA, Dirty Dossier etc.), their credibility will be forever gone!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 29, 2018

A June report from the Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General noted that the FBI had found no evidence of any compromise of Clinton's mail servers—though full forensic analysis of the servers wasn't possible, because one (an Apple server) had been disposed of by the time of the investigation. However, as the OIG report recounted, the FBI's computer forensics agent who was involved in the Clinton email investigation told OIG investigators that:

Enlarge / Getting back to the Moon will require navigating politics on Earth. (credit: JAXA / NHK)

The Apollo missions that flew to the Moon during the 1960s were designed and controlled by what is now known as Johnson Space Center, the home of the famous "Mission Control." Moreover, the astronauts that flew to the Moon all lived in Houston. It would stand to reason, therefore, that as NASA gears up to return to the Moon, major elements of this program would likewise be controlled from the Texas metropolis that styles itself "Space City."

Times change, however. In recent months, the politically well-positioned Marshall Space Flight Center, in Huntsville, Alabama, has been quietly pressing leaders with NASA Headquarters for program management of mid- to large-size landers to the lunar surface, which would evolve into human landers. Sources indicated this effort was having some success.

However, Texas legislators have now begun to push back. On Tuesday, both of Texas' senators (John Cornyn and Ted Cruz), as well as three representatives with space-related committee chairs (John Culberson, Lamar Smith, and Brian Babin), wrote a letter to NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine.