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Science behind sobriety field tests
Albany High students in Elizabeth Lopatniuk's health classes participated in a dynamic lesson about the effects of alcohol on the body. After taking an in-depth look at the science behind why and how alcohol slows the activities of the brain and central nervous system, students learned about how a variety of factors can impact the level of intoxication and how blood alcohol concentration can impair one's ability to operate a motor vehicle. Albany High Student Resource Officer Nick Schuler led students through an overview of field sobriety tests that are routinely performed during a traffic stop when an officer suspects a driver may be under the influence of alcohol. Officer Schuler explained the three elements of a physical sobriety test, including walking a straight line with turns and checks for motor skill patterns, standing on one foot to check for balance and following a moving stimulus with eyes only to check for Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus (HGN), an involuntary, rhythmic jerking of the eyes as they look to the side. Students volunteered to try walking a straight line both with and without alcohol impairment simulation goggles. Officer Schuler pointed out particular behaviors and patterns that would lead to a failed field sobriety test during the simulation. As prom and graduation festivities approach, we applaud our Albany High staff for empowering our Falcons with valuable lessons so they can make wise and safe choices.
Science behind sobriety field tests
Albany High students in Elizabeth Lopatniuk's health classes participated in a dynamic lesson about the effects of alcohol on the body. After taking an in-depth look at the science behind why and how alcohol slows the activities of the brain and central nervous system, students learned about how a variety of factors can impact the level of intoxication and how blood alcohol concentration can impair one's ability to operate a motor vehicle. Albany High Student Resource Officer Nick Schuler led students through an overview of field sobriety tests that are routinely performed during a traffic stop when an officer suspects a driver may be under the influence of alcohol. Officer Schuler explained the three elements of a physical sobriety test, including walking a straight line with turns and checks for motor skill patterns, standing on one foot to check for balance and following a moving stimulus with eyes only to check for Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus (HGN), an involuntary, rhythmic jerking of the eyes as they look to the side. Students volunteered to try walking a straight line both with and without alcohol impairment simulation goggles. Officer Schuler pointed out particular behaviors and patterns that would lead to a failed field sobriety test during the simulation. As prom and graduation festivities approach, we applaud our Albany High staff for empowering our Falcons with valuable lessons so they can make wise and safe choices.
Senate Republican threatens to derail ICE, Border Patrol package over Trump's billion-dollar request
An internal GOP dispute over funding for Trump's ballroom threatens to derail the $72 billion reconciliation package for immigration operations.
NASA Spaceline Current Awareness List #1,200 15 May 2026 (Space Life Science Research Results)
NASA Spaceline Current Awareness List
Four NASA payloads to fly on Astrolab’s first lunar rover
Astrolab’s first lunar rover will carry four NASA payloads on a mission planned to launch later this year.
Heart health screenings deliver lifesaving impact
Penn State Health helps bring heart health care to people who might not otherwise have access by offering free cardiovascular screenings at community organizations and events across central Pennsylvania.
Heart health screenings deliver lifesaving impact
Two weeks after her father suffered a stroke, Courtney Barclay, 46, jumped at the chance to get a free blood pressure check while grocery shopping in Carlisle. “With everything going on with my dad…
Apple Announces WWDC 2026 Schedule, Sends Media Invites
Apple today provided a schedule for its 2026 Worldwide Developers Conference, which starts on June 8 and ends on June 12. Apple also sent out invites to members of the media who have been invited to attend an in-person keynote viewing at Apple Park. Both the invites and schedule confirm that the keynote will begin at the standard time, 10:00 a.m. Pacific Time or 1:00 p.m Eastern Time.
NASA Selects Next Class of Space Health Postdoctoral Fellows
The NASA-funded Translational Research Institute for Space Health (TRISH) has selected two early‑career scientists for its next class of postdoctoral fellows.
Trump’s Taiwan ‘negotiating chip’ remark sparks alarm over how far he'd shift US-China policy
Trump suggests $14 billion Taiwan weapons package could be used as leverage in China negotiations, drawing swift pushback from Taiwan's president.
Google is rolling out its redesigned Workspace app icons
Google’s Workspace icons got an ombre makeover.
Ford Europe plans five new vehicles to turn around passenger business
Although it has leadership in commercial vehicles on the continent, the Blue Oval has struggled with market share in the retail space.
The Impact of Proposed Changes to the HIPAA Security Rule for Business Associates
A final rule updating the HIPAA Security Rule is due for release as early as May 2026. According to HHS/OCR, the modifications to the Security Rule will The final rule implementing changes to the HIPAA Security Rule is due in May 2026. The final rule will have major implications for business associates of HIPAA-covered entities.
Yakima Symphony Orchestra launches summer chamber series
The Yakima Symphony Orchestra will take Beethoven beyond the concert hall this summer with a new chamber music series featuring performances at libraries, wineries and community spaces across the Yakima
New MatterChat Model Helps AI to ‘See’ the Language of Science
From writing emails to generating computer code, much of the artificial intelligence prevalent in our daily lives has succeeded by mastering one domain: text. However, this leaves a major blind spot in the physical sciences, where models depend on the high-resolution, three-dimensional data of the physical world, like the intricate lattice of atoms in a crystal. Delivering on the promise of using AI for science requires teaching these data-driven text models to seamlessly “talk to” physics-based models. Now, a new AI framework from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), called MatterChat, solves this problem by creating a specialized “bridge.” It connects the conversational power of a Large Language Model (LLM) with a physics-based AI that models “interatomic potentials”: the complex physical forces between atoms. The resulting system already significantly outperforms general-purpose AI tools like GPT-4 at predicting material properties, and the team hopes it can accelerate scientific discovery by serving as a robust research partner that provides grounded insights and generates step-by-step instructions for synthesizing novel materials. A paper describing this work was recently published in Nature Machine Intelligence. “Traditional simulations can provide the physical rigor required for materials science, yet their computational cost remains prohibitive for high-throughput screening. Conversely, while LLMs excel at rapid knowledge synthesis, they inherently lack the ‘structural vision’ to interpret materials directly from their underlying atomic coordinates,” said Yingheng Tang, a postdoctoral researcher in Berkeley Lab’s Applied Math and Computational Research Division (AMCR) and lead author on the paper. “MatterChat was built to solve this dilemma, empowering LLMs with a structural ‘vision’ that allows researchers to leverage their full potential for solving complex, real-world materials challenges.” Empowering language models to solve complex challenges in materials science To build MatterChat, the Berkeley Lab team drew inspiration from technologies like Vision Question Answering (VQA) and Text-to-Image (T2I) generation. In these tasks, AI must translate high-level text concepts into visual images, or vice versa. Doing so requires developers to build tools that “bridge” two fundamentally different forms of data. The researchers adapted this concept to the physical sciences. With MatterChat, they created a “bridge model” that successfully connects an LLM’s general knowledge with the deep understanding of the atomic-scale world encoded in scientific interatomic potentials. Until now, researchers using LLMs to solve materials problems usually had to feed them raw data files as if they were just strings of text. It’s like asking an AI to understand a complex 3D engine based only on a parts list: the LLM can read the names, but it can’t “see” how the atoms fit together in space. MatterChat solves this by training a specialized AI bridge model, pre-trained on millions of crystal structures and an LLM, to align the LLM’s representation of the world with the interatomic potential’s representation of the world. The bridge model can translate physical insights into a format the LLM can actually understand. By giving the LLM these “scientific eyes”— a scientific “inductive bias” in the terminology of AI — the Berkeley Lab team has transformed it into a robust research tool capable of providing grounded scientific insights into complex materials challenges, such as predicting thermal stability or analyzing electronic band gaps. “We think of atoms as living in a physical space, but from a machine learning perspective, they are just vectors living in some very non-trivially structured manifold in a high-dimensional Euclidean space; and, of course, the same is true for the sentences and paragraphs that we use to express our ideas about those atoms,” said co-author Michael Mahoney, Berkeley Lab’s Scientific Data Division (SDD) AI Initiative Research Lead. “The bridge model basically gets those two structures to ‘talk with’ each other.” As a proof-of-concept of this general approach, the team trained their bridge model on a dataset curated by pairing nearly 143,000 stable atomic structures from the Materials Project with their corresponding physical properties. This training data was automatically assembled using the Materials Project’s API and deliberately enriched with properties fundamental to microelectronics design — like formation energy and bandgap — allowing MatterChat to learn the complex patterns connecting a material’s atomic blueprint to its functional performance. To validate their model, the researchers benchmarked MatterChat against a suite of other AI systems, from general-purpose LLMs to other specialized scientific AI methods. The results show that MatterChat consistently outperformed its competitors across a range of tasks. The model was more accurate in classifying material types and demonstrated superior precision in predicting numerical properties. For example, it excelled at predicting a material’s bandgap, a property critical for designing new electronics from high-capacity energy storage to next-generation computer chips. “Our design is significantly more efficient because we don’t have to build a massive AI model from the ground up,” said co-author Zhi (Jackie) Yao, a research scientist in Berkeley Lab’s AMCR. “Instead, we take two powerful, pre-trained models — a structural encoder for materials physics and an open-source LLM — and use them off-the-shelf. The only component we actually train is the lightweight ‘bridge model’ that translates between them. It’s the difference between building an entire car factory and simply designing a smart adapter that connects a world-class engine to a world-class navigation system. This approach is not only computationally efficient, but also makes the system modular, so we can easily upgrade components or adapt the bridge for other scientific domains in the future.” Crucially, this modular design highlights exactly how institutions like Berkeley Lab and the Department of Energy are carving out a highly valuable niche in the booming AI landscape. Rather than competing with Silicon Valley tech giants to build ever-larger language models from scratch, the lab is focusing on the specialized connective tissue that makes commercial AI useful for hardcore science. Because the bridge model approach underlying MatterChat is forward-compatible, it is perfectly positioned to leverage these parallel tracks of innovation. As Mahoney pointed out, “We expect that industry will continue to develop improved LLMs, and we expect domain scientists and facilities will continue to generate new data. An important part of scientific machine learning is not simply to solve problems on today’s data, but instead to develop general methods that will be forward-compatible with orders of magnitude more data, whether from scientific domains or from LLMs.” According to Yao, the MatterChat project, which was initially developed and enhanced with funding from a Berkeley Lab Laboratory Directed Research & Development (LDRD) Program, will now expand its capabilities. In a collaboration with Fermilab, MatterChat is already contributing to a U.S. Department of Energy Genesis Mission project — called Accelerating eXtreme Environment Specs-to-Silicon (AXESS) — that aims to speed up the development of next-generation, high-speed, radiation-hardened detectors for challenging particle physics experiments by using advanced 3D integrated circuits (chiplets) and AI-driven data analysis. In addition to the LDRD support, the team also credits supercomputing resources at the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC), located at Berkeley Lab, with MatterChat’s success. “We are incredibly grateful to NERSC; this research simply would not have happened without access to the Perlmutter supercomputer through their AI for Science program,” said Tang. Wenbin Xu, a NERSC postdoctoral fellow at the time, was also a major co-author of the work, as was Benjamin Erichson, a research scientist in Berkeley Lab’s SDD, highlighting the benefits of AMCR-SDD collaboration on AI for science. ### Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) is committed to groundbreaking research focused on discovery science and solutions for abundant and reliable energy supplies. The lab’s expertise spans materials, chemistry, physics, biology, earth and environmental science, mathematics, and computing. Researchers from around the world rely on the lab’s world-class scientific facilities for their own pioneering research. Founded in 1931 on the belief that the biggest problems are best addressed by teams, Berkeley Lab and its scientists have been recognized with 17 Nobel Prizes. Berkeley Lab is a multiprogram national laboratory managed by the University of California for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science. DOE’s Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit energy.gov/science.
Purplish: Wrapping up the session: the policies, the politics... and the poetry
What lasting impacts did the legislature actually make this year?
Tudor Dixon returns to Michigan politics with new PAC aimed at boosting Republicans in key battleground
Tudor Dixon announces her role leading United We Fund, a new multi-million dollar PAC aimed at boosting Republicans in battleground state Michigan.
Potential federal college sports reform could reshape Florida football
Proposed federal reforms surrounding NIL, transfers and NCAA authority could significantly impact Florida and other SEC football programs.
What’s Next for Artemis II AVATARs
Organ chips from Artemis II's AVATAR investigation have arrived at the laboratory at Emulate, Inc. in Boston, Massachusetts for analysis. The AVATAR (A Virtual Astronaut Tissue Analog Response) investigation uses personalized organ chips made from each astronaut's own cells to study the impacts of space radiation and microgravity on human health.
Gradient Google icon redesign starts rolling out
Following our report last month, Google is beginning to roll out its gradient icon redesign for Workspace apps.
The asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs may have triggered a global fungal bloom
The asteroid that smacked into our planet about 66 million years ago at the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K/Pg) boundary may have been bad news for dinosaurs, but it was good news for fungi. According to new ...
2026 Healthcare Marketing Impact Awards
Learn about the 2026 Healthcare Marketing Impact Awards from Ad Age and Modern Healthcare, honoring impactful healthcare advertising, marketing and communications campaigns.
Buttigieg rallies for Montana election initiative, stays mum on political plans
During an hour-long speech in a packed Mother Lode Theatre, Pete Buttigieg made a rousing plea to ban corporate money from Montana politics while repeatedly sidestepping talk of a 2028 presidential run. The 2020 Democratic presidential candidate and former U.S. transportation secretary drew cheers from the audience of 1,200 in Butte as he suggested that special interests and corporate spending in campaigns had drowned out the concerns of average voters.
Op-ed: Peru’s Politics of Instability
As Peru approaches new presidential elections, a cycle of political upheaval has normalized instability, raising urgent questions about whether democracy can function when crisis becomes routine.
Op-ed: Peru’s Politics of Instability
As Peru approaches new presidential elections, a cycle of political upheaval has normalized instability, raising urgent questions about whether democracy can function when crisis becomes routine.
Op-ed: Trump Fires All Governing Members of the US National Science Foundation Amidst Major Cuts to Research
Trump Administration efforts to erase the independence of federal agencies, and roll back research, continue in the firing of all 22 National Science Foundation board members
Pomegranate vs. Grapefruit: Which Is Better for Antioxidants and Overall Health?
When it comes to antioxidant capacity, studies show that grapefruit has higher free radical-neutralizing power. However, pomegranate also provides powerful antioxidants.
This Week In Main Street Technology: Meta’s New AI Glasses, Google Introduces The Googlebook And Claude Has A Small Business Offering
Meta Ray-Bans, Google's Googlebook, Claude For Small Business and other news impacting your small business this week.
Windows boot partition runs out of space for Microsoft's May security update
Testing? We've heard of it
The Subnautica 2 fish self-defence debate rages on, as the game’s non-violent themes clash with player desire to fend off underwater threats
Unknown Worlds has stayed true to its oceanic pacifism themes, while the realities of living with dangerous animals has some players frustrated.
Worsening Nebraska drought could impact tree health amid wildfire concerns
As most of western and central Nebraska faces historic drought, the state’s tree experts are concerned drought could proliferate disease and pest concerns. Dry vegetation and trees also compound wildfire risk.
What We're Expecting at Google I/O 2026
It’s gonna be a Gemini-packed developer conference.
'Truly significant': James Webb telescope reveals largest-ever map of the universe's hidden megastructures
Using the James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have created the most detailed map of the cosmic web ever.
How AI is helping space exploration now — and what the future holds
The mere mention of AI may make some people want to run for the hills, but when it comes to space exploration, it’s an important tool.
Carrick made himself the 'only candidate'
BBC Senior football correspondent Sami Mokbel says Michael Carrick's impact and record as interim Manchester United boss made him the "only candidate" to be given the permanent role. United secured their 11th victory in 16 games under Carrick against Nottingham Forest on Sunday and his appointment on a two-year deal, with a one-year extension, is expected from the club imminently. "Carrick has taken that job in his stride so impressively," Mokbel told BBC Radio 5 Live's Football Daily podcast.
Kyowa Hakko highlights Cognizin citicoline’s science-backed cognitive health benefits
Kyowa Hakko USA is spotlighting citicoline’s benefits for cognitive performance and long-term brain health through multiple complementary mechanisms. The supplier will exhibit its citicoline ingredient Cognizin at this week’s Complementary Medicines Australia (CMA) Innovation Day 2026 in Sydney, Australia (May 21). CMA Innovation Day is one of Australia’s annual industry gatherings for the nutraceuticals supply chain, showcasing the latest innovations shaping the market for vitamins, minerals, and supplements in Australia and the Asia-Pacific region.
‘It’s not supposed to look like you’re going to dive in’: Historians criticize Trump’s Reflecting Pool makeover as group sues
Workers with boots dyed an “American Flag Blue” have painted over about two-thirds of the iconic Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, covering the dull gray with bright azure following a directive by President Donald Trump to expedite the pace of the project.
Scientists discovered nature’s own “brakes” deep beneath the Pacific Ocean that may have prevented massive megaquakes
For decades, a strange patch of the Pacific Ocean has quietly puzzled earthquake scientists around the world. Deep beneath the seafloor, near the coast of Ecuador, a massive underwater fault has been producing almost identical earthquakes every five to six years.
“Un-African” or Unjust? The Politics of Homophobia in Senegal
In recent months, Senegal has found itself at the center of growing debates over LGBTQ rights as rising homophobia and stricter laws reshape the nation’s social and legal landscape. Building on past legislation, a 2026 bill to increase penalties for queer individuals has been met with strong public
Great Balls of Fire
An astronaut on the International Space Station was surprised to photograph a shower of light streaking through the darkness while looking out of the Cupola.
Sports Roundup: Boys Tennis & Boys Lax Lose Home Matchups
Nantucket Current is the island's leading online news source. We deliver the news, stories, and people of Nantucket, unbiased and unfiltered.
Small business, big impact: Exploring Utah's network of resources
Utah is home to a growing network of organizations dedicated to helping entrepreneurs of all kinds succeed.
🚨 Confirmed line-ups for Pumas v Pachuca
Pumas hosts Pachuca at the Estadio Olímpico Universitario for the second leg of the Clausura 2026 semifinal, a match the university side enters trailing 1-0 on aggregate. Pumas Starting XIPachuca St...
The Women’s Health Innovation Radar:
Advancing women’s health requires not only scientific progress, but an innovation ecosystem capable of translating discovery into evidence, technologies and scalable solutions that improve outcomes for women globally. Yet many high-impact conditions continue to receive insufficient targeted innovation. The Women’s Health Innovation Radar maps activity from research funding and scientific publications to clinical trials and product development across 10 high-impact conditions, highlighting where innovation is advancing and where critical gaps persist. It offers a foundation to guide research priorities, inform policy decisions and mobilize investment towards areas of unmet need, helping to ensure that scientific advances translate into meaningful impact for women worldwide.
The Women’s Health Innovation Radar:
Advancing women’s health requires not only scientific progress, but an innovation ecosystem capable of translating discovery into evidence, technologies and scalable solutions that improve outcomes for women globally. Yet many high-impact conditions continue to receive insufficient targeted innovation. The Women’s Health Innovation Radar maps activity from research funding and scientific publications to clinical trials and product development across 10 high-impact conditions, highlighting where innovation is advancing and where critical gaps persist. It offers a foundation to guide research priorities, inform policy decisions and mobilize investment towards areas of unmet need, helping to ensure that scientific advances translate into meaningful impact for women worldwide.
Decoding chirality at the nanoscale with momentum-space polarimetry
Light: Science & Applications - Schematic illustration of Fourier-domain Mueller matrix polarimetry probing light-matter interactions in gammadion nanostructures, and enabling extraction of...
Spaceborne snapshot compressive hyperspectral imaging
Light: Science & Applications - We propose and complete the world’s first computational imaging-enabled compact spaceborne snapshot compressive hyperspectral payload, named...
Linux 7.1-rc4 Released With Many Fixes, New Documentation For Security/AI Topics
It was another busy week in the Linux 7.1 kernel space that has culminated with the release of Linux 7.1-rc4.
Business investment growth in UK is less than half pace of US
There has been a widening divergence between the two economies since 2019
Astrobiology Science Conference (AbSciCon26) Media Tips 2: Technosignatures, Life in Space, Existential Questions, Robot Explorers
The 2026 Astrobiology Science Conference hosted by the American Geophysical Union (AGU) will convene next week
How Penn’s Penn Interactive Layoffs and Restructuring Will Impact PENN Entertainment (PENN) Investors
Penn Entertainment recently cut more than 75 jobs in its Penn Interactive division, affecting theScore Bet, online casino, and social gaming operations as part of a broader restructuring following pressures in the sports betting market and the fallout from its ESPN Bet branding deal. The layoffs, including several senior roles, highlight management’s push to streamline a loss-making digital segment even as online sports betting and iGaming revenues have been improving. Next, we’ll examine...
God, The Science, The Evidence: The Dawn of a Revolution
In effect, therefore, this book is a call for a return to the medieval vision of a rational God who created rational creatures equipped to discover the verities of nature. In other words…
Crowds pack into Washington's National Mall for prayer rally
President Donald Trump was expected to address the gathering, which got underway as a light rain fell, in a video message. Other top Republicans, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., were also on the schedule as part of the celebrations this year marking 250 years of U.S. independence.
Samsung Plans To Transform Your Smartphone & Tablet Into On-Device AI Powerhouses With High-Bandwidth Memory Chips Using Complex Packaging
A unique and complex method of developing HBM for smartphones and tablets is being developed by Samsung to boost their AI capabilities
Here’s the impact of the Voter’s Choice Act 10 years in
These counties are part of the Voter’s Choice Act – a model to provide greater flexibility and convenience for voters.
Minnesota Vikings News and Links: What Moves Are Next?
Not much going on right now as we await the first OTAs and minicamp. The current Cap Space (per OverTheCap) without the Jennings signing reflected is : $12,267,125One June 2nd it will increase due to the Post-June 1 release savings: +$12,500,000 (combined from Harrison Smith and Jonathan Allen)Adjusted Total Cap Space: $24,767,125 I imagine Jennings […]
Pro-Israel groups are spending big to sink Thomas Massie in the most expensive House primary in history
“AIPAC’s views on Thomas Massie are no secret,” the group's spokesman said. “We use different tactics in different districts. Our goal is to win.”
SpaceX Dragon capsule delivers science and supplies to space station
A SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft delivered 6,500 pounds of science and supplies to the International Space Station on Sunday, May 17, 2026.
SpaceX Dragon capsule delivers science and supplies to space station
The cargo spacecraft docked at 6:37 a.m. EDT on Sunday (May 17).
Packers last Wednesday game came nearly a century ago
The NFL has successfully invented a new timeslot with the Packers and Rams playing on “Thanksgiving Eve” this year. And though a game on the night before Thanksgiving might be a new phenomenon, it’s not the first time the Packers have played on a Wednesday. Buckle up, because this is a weird one. Though it’s […]
Scientists uncover surprising health benefits of watermelon
Studies suggest watermelon could be a hidden powerhouse for better health. Researchers found that people who eat watermelon tend to have higher-quality diets packed with more vitamins, fiber, and antioxidants — while consuming less added sugar and saturated fat. Another study showed watermelon juice may help protect blood vessel function and support heart health.
Scientists uncover surprising health benefits of watermelon
Studies suggest watermelon could be a hidden powerhouse for better health. Researchers found that people who eat watermelon tend to have higher-quality diets packed with more vitamins, fiber, and antioxidants — while consuming less added sugar and saturated fat. Another study showed watermelon juice may help protect blood vessel function and support heart health.
Why We Can’t Cut Earth Science to Fund the Next Earthrise Shot
We love space, but not as an abstraction. For my twin sons, it is a tradition. Their birthday themes have evolved from “Two the Moon” for their second birthday, featured on NASA.gov, to “From Space to the Farm,” with the boys in those iconic orange astronaut suits, standing in a cornfield. In the ye...
SpaceX Dragon Docks to Station Filled with New Science Experiments
At 6:37 a.m. EDT, the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft docked to the forward port of the International Space Station’s Harmony module, carrying nearly 6,500 pounds of food, supplies, and equipment for the Expedition 74 crew. This is the 34th SpaceX commercial resupply services mission to the space station for NASA.
This Week in Gaming (Week 21)
Welcome to the second to last week of May and this week is packed with bigger releases, so hold on to your hat as we kick off with this week's AAA release which involves you driving fast cars in exotic environments all over Japan. The rest of the week starts with a family friendly game where you ope...
Ranking the six most intriguing games on the Broncos schedule
The Broncos have plenty of intriguing games in 2026, but these six pack more of the intrigue punch than the rest.
SpaceX Dragon Approaching Station Packed with Science and Supplies
At approximately 9:50 a.m. EDT, Dragon will dock autonomously to the forward port of the space station’s Harmony module.
Nicolais: Lynn Bartels, the beating heart of Colorado politics
Lynn Bartels’ recent birthday reminded me just how important she has been to anyone involved in Colorado's politics
The Bookies Bookstore suggests books on pups, murder and politics
The staff from the Denver bookstore recommends meditations on dogs, a deadly tourist trap and teenagers in political power.
Gamble of all-inclusive deal paid off for this downtown Las Vegas hotel-casino
Here’s why a downtown hotel-casino listened to public sentiment and launched an all-inclusive package in Las Vegas.
I-285 shutdown impacts SW Atlanta businesses during construction project: ‘It’s been very slow’
A two-mile stretch is shut down for the weekend.
I-285 shutdown impacts SW Atlanta businesses during construction project: ‘It’s been very slow’
GDOT shut down a two-mile stretch of I-285 in both directions between Martin Luther King Jr. Drive and Cascade Road from Friday night through Monday morning.
Letter from the editor: Farewell from the executive science editor
Journalism was probably the last thing on my radar when I walked through the club fair as a first-year. And for most of my time at Tufts, it stayed that way. My best friend Carmen was super involved in that world, but her involvement was the closest I got to that space.
Spotlight: NWA Space and Science opens office space, public astronomy library and geology collection in Rogers
Inside a modest room nestled on the second floor of the Jones Community for Nonprofits in Rogers, the future of the Northwest Arkansas Space and Science Center is taking shape.
Spotlight: NWA Space and Science opens office space, public astronomy library and geology collection in Rogers
Inside a modest room nestled on the second floor of the Jones Community for Nonprofits in Rogers, the future of the Northwest Arkansas Space and Science Center is taking shape.
Life with PMDD: 'Like the Grim Reaper coming every month'
Women diagnosed with premenstrual dysphoric disorder discuss how it impacts their lives.
Chicago Fire striker extends ridiculous MLS goalscoring streak 📈
Chicago Fire striker Hugo Cuypers is on an absolute tear in MLS this season. The Belgian is on pace for a historic season after bagging his 13th goal of the campaign this afternoon against CF Montré...
Now What? With Carbon Pricing Eroded and Pipeline Politics Advancing, Here Are the Pathways for Climate Success
At the end of a whirlwind week of news on carbon pricing and electricity strategy, capping a madcap year of pretty much non-stop, dramatic change, the word across much of Canada’s climate and energy transition community is that climate policy in this country has been shredded. Eviscerated. Hit with a sledgehammer by policy rollbacks that have pushed the country’s 2050 net zero target “well out of reach”. That means it’s never been more important to look for the rays of hope and glimmers of possibility. To glimpse the seeds of the next set of strategies to get Canada’s climate pollution under control and the country into the accelerating global dash away from fossil fuels. And then, once we’ve spotted those possibilities, get on with the hard, day-to-day slog of trying to make them a reality. Nothing takes away from the frustration and the deep disappointment so many climate and energy hawks are expressing, the sense of betrayal by the author of Value(s) and the former UN special envoy for climate action and finance. But we knew two things as the week drew to a close. We’re looking at the world as it most definitely is. And we don’t get to give up finding the pathways to confront climate change and deliver faster, deeper carbon cuts that leave no one else behind. So really, the first question we all have to ask ourselves is: What’s next? Subscribe All the Oxygen in the Room The outpouring of anger and grief over the carbon pricing deal between Prime Minister Mark Carney and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has been absolutely understandable. So much of the climate community poured years, more than a decade, into dragging the current federal pricing regime across the finish line, then defending it from a deluge of three-syllable rhymes after the Trudeau government proved utterly incapable of delivering its own message. The policy foisted on us by neo-classical economists took up all the oxygen in the room, burned through years of climate response time that we won’t get back, while cornering climate hawks into the position that the best response to the crisis of our lifetimes is a new tax…in an era of historic anti-tax sentiment. I mean, really—what could possibly have gone wrong? Against that history, let’s appreciate columnist Max Fawcett’s point that even a modest carbon pricing agreement with a government as off-the-wall libertarian/conspiracist as Danielle Smith’s—those adjectives are mine, not Max’s—is a win worth savouring (as long as Smith keeps her promises for a change). But part of living in the world as it is (no, I’m not letting that go) is to be clear-headed about what we can and can’t control. And one thing we get to decide, after seeing this week’s carbon price festivities take up all the oxygen yet again, is whether we want to keep letting that happen. Particularly when success down that road depends on a factor that no one with a climate agenda can control or influence—a provincial carbon pricing mechanism that has been manipulated and eroded beyond its lowest possible denominator. Thankfully, that’s not the way it has to go. Not when we have so many other powerful, practical tools at our disposal, including the ones still available to us through this abominable Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between Canada and Alberta. Tools In Our Toolbox When I started roughing out this list, I didn’t expect it to grow to nearly a dozen bullet points. It’s probably still incomplete. Some of the greatest hits in today’s climate solutions toolbox include: • No Carbon Capture, No Pipeline: On Friday, Prime Minister Mark Carney explicitly stated that there’s been no change to the MOU provision that there will be no West Coast pipeline without an industry commitment to build its massive, $16.5-billion carbon capture and storage (CCUS) hub in Northern Alberta, and vice versa. The two megaprojects were joined at the hip when the MOU was signed Nov. 27, and the implementation agreement this week affirmed that they still are. A parade of independent analysts have spent years pointing to the economic and technical flaws in CCUS, while the industry kept postponing its investment decision until it could arm-twist the government for more “clarity” (by which it meant even more lavish taxpayer subsidies) on the project. Now the industry itself is running away from the CCUS hub and insisting the pipeline should proceed without it, but Carney doesn’t seem to be budging from a central tenet of the MOU to which Smith has signed on. • No Subsidies, No Investors: Climate analysts and advocates have quite rightly been hammering away at Carney and his team, insisting that any new capacity the industry wants to build must proceed without new subsidies. The government has responded with a growing collection of funding and financing mechanisms for the very wide menu of industrial development and nation-building projects they say they want to take on, and that menu always includes fossil fuel infrastructure. But it’s hard to see how even the combined fiscal clout of the federal and supportive provincial governments will deliver the financial backing private investors would need when the business case for new fossil fuel development is evaporating before their eyes. Particularly when… • No Market, No Demand, No Investors: As our friend Markham Hislop at Energi Media (our apparently sleepless friend, given the massive volume of great material he’s been churning out) points out this morning, the biggest vulnerability in any pipeline deal is the assumption that Asian buyers will want the oil or liquefied natural ga that our fossil industry is so keen to send them. Hislop writes in part: Ottawa and Alberta are effectively betting that countries like China and India will continue increasing oil imports for decades as their economies grow and energy consumption rises. That assumption underpins the entire economic rationale for expanding oil sands production and building billions of dollars in new export infrastructure. But Asian energy systems are changing rapidly… China, India, South Korea, and other major hydrocarbon importers are now investing hundreds of billions of dollars into electricity systems built around wind, solar, batteries, nuclear, hydro, and expanded transmission infrastructure. Domestic “energy sovereignty” is increasingly replacing the old energy-security model based on stable oil and gas imports. Those investments are expected to sharply slow oil demand growth and eventually reverse it, even as overall energy consumption continues rising. There are also refining constraints. Many Asian refineries and petrochemical complexes are already optimized to process discounted heavy crude from the Middle East and Latin America. That raises serious questions about how much additional Canadian bitumen Asian markets can absorb at profitable prices. Small wonder that there’s still no private sector investor for the project, despite Smith’s government desperately beating the bushes to put together a deal. For now, Alberta is acting as proponent and covering early start-up costs for a pitch to the federal Major Projects Office, which could actually turn into the next tough hurdle for Smith and her pipeline to jump. • Canada Day Looms: How ironic that Canada’s birthday this year could become a major chokepoint for the provincial premier who’s been working so diligently to tear the country apart! The July 1 target date for Alberta’s pipeline proposal is baked into the MOU, was reaffirmed by the implementation plan, but it hadn’t dawned on me that it cuts both ways. As one very smart colleague wrote in an email yesterday, “they’ve thrown the ball into Alberta’s court to get the project proposal on the table really quickly and to have to do a whole pile of work to put together a massive, complicated project that would typically take years to assemble, and they’ve given them weeks to do it.” That makes July 1 a looming deadline that Smith won’t be able to run away from politically, especially with the separatists in her party and her caucus breathing down her neck. (See previous ref to off-the-wall.) But if Alberta comes in with a sloppy, incomplete submission, even after Carney bent over backwards to simplify the application process and the rules that govern it, it may be harder for the province or the industry to blame Ottawa and insist on the faster process they claim their investors are demanding. (Oh, wait—which investors would those be??) • We’ll See You In Court (Then We’ll See You Again): If Carney did cave, that would be just one more reason for Indigenous and other affected communities to take the government and the process to court—Just as Alberta First Nations did, successfully, in response to Smith’s half-baked separation referendum. Veterans of the Harper era have been warning that a shoddy process around fossil fuel infrastructure or other major projects will be a recipe for the very delays that process seeks to avoid. And now more than ever, with renewable energy and energy storage eating fossil fuels’ lunch in import markets around the world, a delayed pipeline or LNG terminal may be as good as a cancelled one. • Charged Up, Ready to Go: With its goal of doubling Canada’s electricity supply to meet a doubling of demand by 2050, the national electricity strategy that Carney unveiled Thursday has a lot to like. With its explicit language about speeding the shift from fuels to more efficient and affordable electricity, global investment and deployment patterns that already favour that shift, an emerging bidirectional power grid, the role of front-line options like rooftop solar and heat pumps, the emergence of electric vehicles as behind-the-meter energy storage, and the domestic jobs and manufacturing to make it all happen, the document doubles down on the essential cornerstone of a faster shift off fossil fuels. The strategy envisions a more prominent role for gas and nuclear power. But some of those provisions were already in the Clean Electricity Regulations that climate hawks are now fighting so hard to defend, inserted as a compromise in a futile attempt to mollify the industry and its political representatives in Alberta and Saskatchewan. But once again, gas will be a tougher sell when it’s more expensive and now so much more unpredictable than the clean alternatives. The new nuclear technologies are still speculative and deeply vulnerable to cost overruns. Increasingly, utilities, developers, and investors know it. Carney declared Thursday that “it doesn’t do us good to be sitting in court all the time with provinces. It doesn’t do us good to be talking past each other. What does do us good is to come together with specific projects.” There are no guarantees, but so much of the language and narrative-building in the electricity strategy suggests the lion’s share of those projects will be renewable. • The Party Has Already Started: The electricity strategy only rarely digs down to specific projects, but provinces representing three-quarters of Canada’s population are already embracing a faster transition. Hydro-Québec is working on a 10-year, $185-billion renewable energy and grid buildout by 2035. Ontario recently brought 10 provinces and territories together in a National Energy Corridor Agreement to boost interprovincial and -territorial transmission infrastructure. And the MOU implementation agreement commits Alberta to facilitate investment in renewable energy projects, a big step back from its continuing, punitive restrictions on renewables development. The electricity strategy envisions much of the financing and infrastructure that will be needed to pull those advances together into an integrated whole. • Delivering on Affordability: The MOU implementation plan has little or nothing to say about affordability (are you surprised?), but the electricity strategy does, with a top-line pledge to reduce home energy costs for seven out of 10 Canadian households by 2050, a total saving of $15 billion across the board. It’s just a start, but it puts affordability on the government’s narrative map. If they’re serious and deliberate about patching together a least-cost energy strategy, it’ll have little if any room for oil, gas, or nuclear—not with powerful evidence, for example, that electricity prices are higher when those prices are set by gas. • Smith Proves that Canada Works: By signing a deal that makes it harder to claim the federal government is blocking a new pipeline, Smith has helped prove Carney’s constant anti-separatist refrain that “Canada works”—incurring the rage, no doubt, of her own political base. Canada also needs to work for anyone who depends on a clean environment, healthy and thriving ecosystems, and safe, stable climate. But with Smith and her separatist constituents setting up as a fifth column for annexation by Donald Trump’s United States, let’s set aside any notion that 51st state status for Canada is a recipe for anything other than climate disaster (and so much else). Resisting and withstanding Trump (just 170 more sleeps until mid-term elections, which is a damn sight better than the 730 we started with) doesn’t mean a free pass for a pipeline, but we can still appreciate it that keeping Canada whole and sovereign is still Carney’s Job One. • The Words Not Spoken: Apart from a commitment to export a million barrels of “low-emission” Alberta bitumen per day (memo to Smith and Carney: You realize that that’s less than the industry is already exporting??), the MOU implementation plan says nothing about the international trade and economic sovereignty deals that Carney has been travelling the world to negotiate. It didn’t have to. Carney doesn’t need permission from Danielle Smith, her American enablers, or her separatist allies to continue building the alliances that will ratchet down our economic dependency on our unstable, unreliable neighbour to the south. But every connection he builds with countries outside North America helps align our economy and our future with a faster shift off fossil fuels. Little if any of this was on our bingo cards a year or two ago. But it’s the pathway that has opened up to us. And if it gives Canada any climate or energy gains at all in an era still dominated by Trump and his increasingly ridiculous tariffs, his loutish trade negotiations and his continuing annexation threats, we have to take the wins. Not least because they’ll be the point of departure for what we can achieve in 2027, 2029, and beyond, as Trump’s grip and this era begin to loosen and then fade. What is Carney Doing? If this line of thought is right—and it’s a possibility, not a prediction—it means that Carney’s actions and decisions are largely about buying time. Time for Trump’s power to wane. Time for Alberta’s separatist/conspiracist virus to spread, mutate, die out, or at least die back, with help from a vaccine of federal steadiness and calm (appropriate enough, for a movement populated largely by vaccine deniers) that no conspiracy theory can dismiss. And time for the government’s trade and investment agenda to deliver results—even knowing that some of those results will bring impacts that front-line communities will not and should not accept. In the immediate moment, none of this changes the way the wider climate community has to respond, from campaigners to investors to front-line practitioners. All of our voices are still essential. But those voices will be stronger and more confident if we have a clearer sense of the brutal game we’ve been pulled into, and a plausible path (or two it three) for playing it to the win we need. This conversation also underscores our biggest task for the remaining years of what was supposed to be the “decisive” decade for climate response: if we can shift the energy narrative in Canada, make it a mainstream view that the country’s preoccupation with oil and gas has us falling farther behind a changing world, we’ll see far better results in the 2030s and beyond. For many veteran climate advocates, taking on that part of the fight will begin with recognizing that most of our friends and family, neighbours and colleagues already understand that climate change is real and right in front of us: they’re looking away and staying silent because they don’t have what climate communicator Katharine Hayhoe calls “efficacy”. As Hayhoe recently pointed out in a feature interview with The Energy Mix, it amounts to science denial to keep hammering away at the dire news about global warming without also helping audiences understand what they can do about it, with multiple studies telling us why that won’t work. Far better to open those conversations with the dominant crises like energy security, food security, emergency preparedness and business continuity, affordability, and financial security that have knocked climate change far lower on the list of public priorities, and will likely keep it there. We Knew This Would Happen Climate hawks have always known this day would come. For decades, we warned that everyone had to pay attention to climate change right now, because it would be much tougher to respond once the crisis itself started affecting our daily lives. We were right, and here we are. But now, thanks to decades of hard work, communities and countries have an alternative to doubling down on fossil fuels. “In 10 years everyone will have ‘always known’ that solar and batteries were going to win,” Morgan Solar Executive Chair Mike Andrade writes on LinkedIn. With the disruption in the Strait of Hormuz roiling energy priorities around the world, Canada and the United States are among the shrinking number of countries that are still very keen on fossil fuel development. Understanding that gap is a first, essential step in spotting the opportunities ahead, and averting the deep economic as well as environmental and social risk we face if we don’t seize them. Thanks for reading The Energy Mix Weekender! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support our work. Subscribe Mitchell Beer traces his background in renewable energy and energy efficiency back to 1977, in climate change to 1997. Now he and the rest of the Energy Mix team scan 1,200 news headlines a week to pull together The Energy Mix and The Energy Mix Weekender. Chart of the Week BYD Eyes 20 Dealership Locations After Canada Greenlights Chinese EV Imports ‘Sledgehammer’ Carbon Price Deal Boosts Emissions by 230Mt, Aims for Fall 2027 Pipeline Approval ‘Worse Than Harper’: Regulatory Rollback Would Stop Canada from Assessing Project Impacts, Critics Warn Electricity Strategy Aims for Doubling by 2050, Allows ‘Flexibility’ for Gas Power Plants Opposition Mounts as O’Leary’s Data Centre Approved in Drought-Stricken Utah Diluted Carbon Price Misses ‘Reality of the World We’re In’, Could Impede Diversified Trade: Climate Institute $200B in Clean Energy Investment Will Need On-Time Delivery, Reliable Policies, Trade Association Says ‘Sovereign Pipeline’: CEO Pitches to Keep Trans Mountain in Government Hands What a Supercharged El Niño Could Mean for Canada Canada’s future is electric, and here’s how a power grid superhighway would get us there (Toronto Star) The Perilous Waters of Hecate Strait (Globe and Mail) Saudi Aramco profits jump despite conflict in Middle East (The Guardian) Farmers confront rising cost of fertilizer and fuel as spring seeding under way (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) Clarkson forecasts 24% decline in offshore oil, gas capital expenditures (Oil & Gas Journal) Pipe Dreams: How Oil and Gas Fail to Deliver Economic Development in Africa (Oil Change International) Developing countries must hold the pen to script the fossil fuel transition (Climate Home News) Iran war threatens the dream of a post-oil economy in the Gulf (Washington Post) U.S. Oil, Gas Work Force Hits Lowest Level Since 2022 (Rigzone) Why Polestar Is Doubling Down on Net Zero as Rivals Pull Back on EVs (Bloomberg) Why this Michigan utility plans to sell its hydro dams for $13 (E&E News/Politico) Levees can no longer save New Orleans (Vox)
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