 |
|
|
|||||
A strong solar storm headed to Earth could produce colorful aurora displays across more U.S. states than usual Tuesday night. The sun earlier this week burped out huge bursts of energy called coronal mass ejections, leading space weather forecasters to issue a geomagnetic storm watch. Northern lights were forecast in Alaska, Washington, Oregon, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. Parts of northern Idaho, Wyoming, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, New York and Pennsylvania may also get a view. The strength of the light show will depend on how Earth’s magnetic field interacts with the solar bursts, said Shawn Dahl at NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center. Heres what to know about auroras and how to spot them. What are northern lights? The sun is at the maximum phase of its 11-year activity cycle, making the light displays more common and widespread. Colorful northern lights have decorated night skies in unexpected places and space weather experts say there are more auroras still to come. This is going to kind of continue off and on throughout the year, Dahl said. Last spring, the strongest geomagnetic storm in two decades slammed Earth, producing light displays across the Northern Hemisphere. And last fall, a powerful solar storm dazzled skygazers far from the Arctic Circle when dancing lights appeared in unexpected places including Germany, the United Kingdom, New England and New York City. Aurora displays known as the northern and southern lights are commonly visible near the poles, where charged particles from the sun interact with Earth’s atmosphere. Skygazers are spotting the lights deeper into the United States and Europe because the sun is going through a major facelift. Every 11 years, its poles swap places, causing magnetic twists and tangles along the way. Severe storms are capable of scrambling radio and GPS communications. The suns active spurt is expected to last at least through the end of this year, though when solar activity will peak wont be known until months after the fact, according to NASA and the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. What do solar storms do? Solar storms can bring more than colorful lights to Earth. When fast-moving particles and plasma slam into Earths magnetic field, they can temporarily disrupt the power grid. Space weather can also interfere with air traffic control radio and satellites in orbit. In 1859, a severe solar storm triggered auroras as far south as Hawaii and caught telegraph lines on fire in a rare event. And a 1972 solar storm may have detonated magnetic U.S. sea mines off the coast of Vietnam. Space weather experts arent able to predict a solar storm months in advance. Instead, they alert relevant parties to prepare in the days before a solar outburst hits Earth. How to see auroras Northern lights forecasts can be found on NOAAs Space Weather Prediction Center website or an aurora forecasting app. Consider aurora-watching in a quiet, dark area away from city lights. NASA’s Kelly Korreck recommended skygazing from a local or national park. And check the weather forecast because clouds can cover up the spectacle entirely. Taking a picture with a smartphone camera may also reveal hints of the aurora that arent visible to the naked eye. Enjoy it, said Korreck. Its this great show … from the sun to you. Adithi Ramakrishnan, AP science writer The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institutes Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Category:
E-Commerce
Harvard is the first university to reject President Donald Trumps demands, which require the university to make sweeping changes in order to keep its $2.2 billion in federal funding, and is subsequently now facing a freeze of those funds, which the university has called both unlawful and unconstitutional. The governments demands follow a review of nearly $9 billion in federal funding to Harvard, and come amid a broad crackdown on college campuses aimed at axing DEI and limiting free speech, under the guise of eliminating so-called left-wing ideology and antisemitism. Harvard faculty have sued to block Trump from pulling their funding, and filed a temporary restraining order labeling the threats a “gun to the head.” Harvard’s act of resistance brings up two very different but important questions, one political, and one financial: Will this set a precedent for other universities to follow, and where does Harvard get its funding, anyway? What does Harvard’s decision mean for other universities? First things first: Harvard University didn’t just quietly reject Trump’s overreach. President Alan Garber made a bold show of resistance, in a letter to the campus community, stating that the government’s demands “violate Harvards First Amendment rights and exceeds the statutory limits of the governments authority under Title VI,” and that “no governmentregardless of which party is in powershould dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue.” Some commentators have said Harvard learned from Columbia University’s mistake. In caving to Trump‘s demands, Columbia will be forced to acquiesce in a number of ways, including hiring three dozen campus officers “who will have the ability to remove individuals from campus and/or arrest them when appropriate.” The administration also has paused federal funding for the University of Pennsylvania, Brown University, Princeton University, Cornell University, and Northwestern University, according to the AP. Former President Barack Obama praised Harvard’s decision and encouraged other institutions to do the same. As The New York Times noted, Harvard’s stance could set a precedent for other universities, and empower law firms, the media and courts, and other targets to also push back. (In fact, on Tuesday, Columbia’s president released a statement seemingly backtracking and perhaps following Harvard’s lead: “We have not reached any agreement with the government at this point [. . .] We would reject any agreement in which the government dictates what we teach, research, or who we hire.”) Where does Harvard get its money? This leads us to our second point, where does Harvard get its funding? It might come as a surprise, but while Harvard has a vast endowment of $53.2 billion, it relies on several other sources beyond that for its funding. These include federal and non-federal research grants, tuition and fees, and gifts from alumni and others. Harvard received approximately $2.4 billion from its endowment in fiscal 2024, which made up only 37.5% of its overall operating budget of $6.4 billion. The university’s $686 million in federal funding representing roughly 16% of its operating revenue. However, Harvard can only tap 20% of its endowment for discretionary spending, to go toward the money lost by Trump’s freezes. A majority of the endowment distributions are restricted by donors, both legally and from stipulations from donors, in regard to how Harvard can spend that money. Another way Harvard is able to cover its high costs is that it does not pay federal or state taxes. Many people don’t know that Harvard, and most major colleges and universities, are tax-exempt organizations. On Tuesday, Trump threatened to eliminate Harvard’s tax-exempt status in a post on Truth Social, saying, “Perhaps Harvard should lose its Tax Exempt Status and be Taxed as a Political Entity if it keeps pushing political, ideological, and terrorist inspired/supporting Sickness?'”According to its website, Harvard is exempt from federal income tax as an educational institution under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended. As an educational institution, Harvard is also exempt from state income tax in Massachusetts, where it is located.
Category:
E-Commerce
Harvard University is the latest in a growing list of higher education institutions that had its federal funding targeted by the government in order to comply with the Trump administration’s political agenda. The series of threats and subsequent pauses in funding to some of the top U.S. universities have become an unprecedented tool for the administration to exert influence on college campuses. Six of the seven universities impacted are Ivy League schools. President Donald Trump vowed to pursue these federal cuts on the campaign trail last year, saying he would focus on schools that push critical race theory, transgender insanity, and other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content. Public school systems are targets for cuts too. Here’s a look at which universities have been pressured by the administration’s funding cuts so far. Harvard University The administration announced its antisemitism task force would conduct a comprehensive review of the Massachusetts university on March 31. The government was set to review nearly $9 billion of federal grants and contracts. Harvard is among universities across the country where pro-Palestinian protests erupted on campus amid the war in Gaza last year. Republican officials have since heavily scrutinized those universities, and several Ivy League presidents testified before Congress to discuss antisemitism allegations. The administration issued its list of demands to Harvard in a letter on April 3. The demands included a ban on face masks, limitations on campus protests and a review of academic departments biases. About a week later, those demands were expanded to include leadership reforms, admission policy changes and stopping the university’s recognition of certain student organizations. Then, on Monday, Harvard President Alan Gerber refused to comply, saying in a letter that the university will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights. Hours later, the administration announced it froze more than $2.2 billion in grants and $60 million in contracts to the university. Cornell University The White House announced last week that it froze more than $1 billion of Cornell’s federal funding. The administration said the freeze came as it investigated alleged civil rights violations at the university. The New York university was among a group of more than 60 universities that received a letter from the Education Department on March 10 urging them to take steps to protect Jewish students or else face potential enforcement actions. The Defense Department issued more than 75 stop-work orders for research, Cornell said in a statement, but that the federal government hadn’t confirmed if the total funding freeze totaled $1 billion. Northwestern University Like Cornell, Northwestern also saw a halt in some of its federal funding last week. The amount was about $790 million, according to the Trump administration. The Illinois university did not receive an official message from the White House on the freeze despite its cooperation with civil rights investigations, according to Northwestern officials at the time. University spokesperson Jon Yates said Northwestern’s scientific research was at jeopardy because of the freeze a widespread issue for universities facing research cuts from the National Institutes of Health. Brown University The Trump administration was anticipated to pause federal grants and contracts at Brown University because of the Rhode Island school’s response to alleged antisemitism on campus, according to a White House official on April 3. The total was expected to be about $510 million in funding, according to the official. Princeton University Dozens of research grants were suspended at Princeton University without a clear rationale, according to an April 1 campus message from university president Christopher Eisgruber. The grants came from federal agencies such as the Department of Energy, NASA and the Defense Department. Before the funding pause, Eisgruber had expressed his opposition to Trump’s threatened cuts at Columbia University in an essay in The Atlantic magazine. He called the administration’s move a radical threat to scholarly excellence and to America’s leadership in research.” University of Pennsylvania Unlike the other targeted universities, the University of Pennsylvania saw funding cuts because of a transgender athlete who competed in Penn’s swimming program, according to the Trump administration. After a Feb. 5 executive order barring transgender athletes from participating in women’s and girls’ sports, the Education Department launched an investigation a day later into athletics programs at Penn and San Jose State University. The Penn investigation centered on Lia Thomas, who is the first openly transgender thlete to win an NCAA Division I title and graduated from the university in 2022. Over a month later, the White House announced the suspension of about $175 million in federal funding from the Defense Department and the Department of Health and Human Services. The administration said the halt in funding on March 19 came after a separate discretionary federal money review. The university said at the time that it wasn’t directly notified of the action. Columbia University Columbia University was the first major institution that had its funding singled out by the Trump administration. At first, federal agencies declared they were considering stop-work orders for about $51 million of contracts with Columbia on March 3. Trump had also said on social media that schools that allow illegal protests would see funding cuts. Last year, Columbia student protesters started a wave of campus demonstrations against Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. The protests led to tense faceoffs with police at the New York City university and the arrests of more than 100 demonstrators. University leadership faced scathing condemnations from Republicans on the protests’ proliferation, leading former president Minouche Shafik to step down. Columbia also began investigating pro-Palestinian student activists, such as Mahmoud Khalil, who was later arrested and is at threat of deportation. On March 7, the Trump administration cancelled about $400 million of Columbia’s federal funding. Columbia took some action afterward, such as expelling and suspending some student protesters who occupied a campus building during demonstrations. The university announced March 21 that it had agreed to make even more sweeping policy changes that the Trump administration had demanded. The changes included placing the Middle East studies department under supervision, hiring new safety personnel who can make arrests, and banning face masks for the purposes of concealing one’s identity. The university also agreed to appoint a senior provost tasked with reviewing several international studies departments’ leadership and curriculum. Armstrong resigned from her post the following week. The decision was met with dissatisfaction among some faculty members and a lawsuit against the cuts. But following Harvard’s defiance of the Trump administration’s demands, Columbia’s acting president, Claire Shipman, had a new message Monday. She said that while she agrees with some of the administration’s requests, the university would reject heavy-handed orchestration that would require us to relinquish our independence and autonomy as an educational institution. Discussions were still ongoing between the federal government and Columbia as of Monday, according to Shipman’s campus letter. Makiya Seminera, Associated Press
Category:
E-Commerce
All news |
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||