Weekend Update
Macron and Le Pen through to run-off:
The centrist Emmanuel Macron will face far-right leader Marine Le Pen in a run-off for the French presidency on 7 May, near-final results show.
With 96% of votes counted from Sunday’s first round, Mr Macron has 23.9% with Ms Le Pen on 21.4%.
Macron is a centrist banker who has never run for political office before. Le Pen is “une Trumpette“, a populist, Putin loving, EU hating wingnut. The losing candidates seem to be united in telling their voters to vote for Macron.
In science news: Aurora photographers find new night sky lights and call them “Steve”
Testing showed it appeared to be a hot stream of fast-flowing gas in the higher reaches of the atmosphere.
The European Space Agency (ESA) sent electric field instruments to measure it 300km (190 miles) above the surface of the Earth and found the temperature of the air was 3,000C (5,400F) hotter inside the gas stream than outside it.
Inside, the 25km-wide ribbon of gas was flowing at 6 km/s (13,000mph), 600 times faster than the air on either side.
Feeling that some people would reject plain old “Steve”, one of the people in the Twitter exchange offered “Sudden Thermal Emission from Velocity Enhancement” or STEVE for the purple ribbon of light. [It sounds scientific, right?]
2 comments
Here’s one for the books (in USA):
GOP judge shocks fellow Republicans in NC by resigning to allow Dem governor to choose replacement
And this (in the Geeee… what a non-surprise category):
Trump Is Giving A $4 Billion Tax Cut To His Kids As He Takes Away Health Care From Millions
That judge is angry about the games the Republicans in the NC legislature are playing and he doesn’t want his retirement to be the first vacancy to be filled in an obviously partisan manner. He believes that judges and courts should be above politics.
Trump’s tax plan is going nowhere. He still doesn’t understand that Congress controls the money in the US system. He’s trying to run the government like his family business and the members of Congress are not his kids.