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Hmmmmm…could Thomas Massie save the Republican party and “Make Democracy Great Again”

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MAGA doesn’t want him, doesn’t know him, and doesn’t respect him,” President Donald Trump wrote in a lengthy tirade against Thomas Massie, a Republican congressman from Kentucky who has criticized the President over a number of issues from war with Iran to the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill.

“He is a negative force who almost always Votes ‘NO,’ no matter how good something may be. He’s a simple minded ‘grandstander’ who thinks it’s good politics for Iran to have the highest level Nuclear weapon, while at the same time yelling ‘DEATH TO AMERICA’ at every chance they get,” Trump posted on Sunday.

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Rep. Thomas Massie (R, Ky.) speaks to reporters after a House GOP caucus meeting at the U.S. Capitol on June 4, 2025.Kevin Dietsch—Getty Images

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The Mona Lisa has been the subject of awe and fascination for centuries, with experts from around the world desperate to solve the mystery behind her iconic, enigmatic smile.

Now, thanks to X-ray technology, scientists have begun to uncover the secrets of Leonardo da Vinci’s legendary portrait, and explain how he was able to create something so mind-bending with just a few strokes of a brush.

The research, published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society on Wednesday, suggests that the Italian Renaissance master may have been in a particularly inventive mood when set about crafting the piece in the early 16th century.

“He was someone who loved to experiment, and each of his paintings is completely different technically,” Victor Gonzalez, the study’s lead author, told the Associated Press..

Gonzalez, who has studied the chemical compositions of dozens of works by Leonardo and other artists, discovered that there was something special about the paint used for the Mona Lisa.

Specifically, the researchers found a rare compound, called plumbonacrite, in Leonardo’s first layer of paint.

The discovery confirmed that Leonardo most likely used lead oxide powder to thicken and help dry his paint as he began working on the portrait.

He is thought to have dried the powder, which has an orange colour, in linseed or walnut oil by heating the mixture to make a thicker, faster-drying paste.

“What you will obtain is an oil that has a very nice golden colour,” Gonzalez said. “It flows more like honey.”

Carmen Bambach, a specialist in Italian art and curator at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, who was not involved in the study, called the research “very exciting”.

She emphasised that any scientifically proven new insights into Leonardo’s painting techniques are “extremely important news for the art world and our larger global society.”

Finding plumbonacrite in the Mona Lisa attests “to Leonardo’s spirit of passionate and constant experimentation as a painter—it is what renders him timeless and modern,” Bambach said.

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Secrets revealed

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For one in three U.S. residents, single-use plastic bags are no longer a cheap and easy ubiquity—and beaches, riverbanks and lakeshores are benefitting.

That’s according to research published on June 19 in Science. Researchers analyzed data from thousands of shoreline cleanups across the U.S. and found that areas that implemented policies that banned single-use plastic bags or charged a fee for them had a reduced proportion of these items in their beach trash compared with sites without such policies. It’s perhaps the most solid evidence yet that these measures make a difference in the environment.

“I didn’t expect we would find anything,” says Kimberly Oremus, an environmental economist at the University of Delaware and a co-author of the new research. “I was very shocked.”

Oremus and her co-author, Anna Papp, an environmental economist, who will be starting a postdoctoral position at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology later this year, began the research when they learned about a

massive trove of data from a nonprofit organization called the Ocean Conservancy. That group tracked trash collected at more than 45,000 volunteer-powered shoreline cleanups between January 2016 and December 2023. So Oremus and Papp wondered whether they could find any sign of what happens when a town, county or state creates a policy meant to limit single-use plastic bags.

And remarkably, they did. The researchers decided that, given the variety of the cleanup efforts that were represented in the database, they couldn’t meaningfully tally individual plastic bags. But they could determine what proportion of the trash at any given site was made up of these single-use bags and how that changed over time. The bad news: plastic trash overall increased everywhere over the eight years they studied, and single-use bags became a larger proportion of that trash everywhere as well. But by comparing the cleanup tallies with local policies, the team determined that both fees for and outright bans on plastic bags did lead to comparatively lower proportions of the bags in local beach garbage.

That’s an important finding for policymakers who are looking to make a difference, says Kara Lavender Law, an oceanographer at the Sea Education Association in Massachusetts, who was not involved in the new research. “This is actually one of the very few studies that has demonstrated the intended impact of the policy seems to be bearing out in the environmental data,” she says.

The researchers were able to dig surprisingly deep into the power and limitations of these policies, too. Was it possible that people were turning away from plastic generally, regardless of the policies? Oremus and Papp looked at other common plastic trash—straws, water bottles and bottle caps—and found that, for these items, nothing changed.

The researchers also looked at the policies in closer detail to determine what worked best. They found that complete bans were more effective than measures that prohibited some types of plastic bags but permitted others. And the team figured out that the policies made the most difference in places that had previously had the highest concentration of single-use bags in their shoreline trash.

The data also included a handful of observations of wildlife entangled in plastic. Here, Oremus and Papp found hints that policies that targeted plastic bags did seem to reduce these sightings, although they hope to study this connection in more detail in the future.

Taken together, the findings mean that bag bans and fees aren’t a plastic panacea but do matter. “These plastic bag policies are only targeting this one type of item,” Papp says. “They’re helping mitigate the pollution of this one type of item but are nowhere close to a solution on plastic pollution in general.”

Law cautions that trying to copy and paste plastic bag bans and fees onto other products may backfire. “I do think that policies around plastic solutions need to be narrow in scope and very specific to the item or the material or whatever it is we’re trying to reduce,” Law says. “We can’t just take one approach and create a blanket policy.”

Still, when confronting a challenge as vast as plastic pollution, all three scientists say that any successful approach is useful. “Plastics are so ubiquitous and single-use plastics are so heavily used that, of course, a straw policy or a single plastic bag policy is not going to solve the entire problem,” Law says. “But I do think that these actions are important—especially if we can demonstrate that they seem to be having an effect—because we have to start somewhere.”

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In his statement, Rodgers noted he spoke with Ralphs a few days before he died. “We shared a laugh, but it won’t be our last,” he said.

Bad Company will be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Nov. 8 in Los Angeles.

Ralphs, a native of Herefordshire, England, co-founded glam rock outfit Mott the Hoople in 1969. The band’s name was borrowed from Willard Manus’ 1966 novel.

In addition to playing guitar, Ralphs was the lead singer on some of Mott the Hoople’s songs, including the 1970 album track “Thunderbuck Ram.”

His last appearance came on 1973’s “Mott” album, shortly after the band achieved its biggest commercial success with “All the Young Dudes,” an endearing anthem of the glam-rock era produced and written by David Bowie.

More: Bruce Springsteen is releasing his ‘Lost Albums’: The songs you haven’t heard but need to

Ralphs had met Rodgers, who fronted blues-rock group Free, in 1971. A jam session with the singer prompted him to depart Mott the Hoople and (with Rodgers) form Bad Company. The band also included Kirke and King Crimson bassist/singer Boz Burrell, who died in 2006.

Bad Company’s 1974 debut included the guitar-swinger “Can’t Get Enough,” written by Ralphs. He also took “Ready for Love” – which he penned for Mott the Hoople’s “All the Young Dudes” album – to Bad Company, which turned it into a signature song.

Ralphs stayed with Bad Company until the original band dissolved in 1982 after producing enduring rock hits “Rock ‘n’ Roll Fantasy,” “Feel Like Makin’ Love” and the eponymous “Bad Company.”

In his statement, Rodgers noted he spoke with Ralphs a few days before he died. “We shared a laugh, but it won’t be our last,” he said.

Bad Company will be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Nov. 8 in Los Angeles.

Ralphs, a native of Herefordshire, England, co-founded glam rock outfit Mott the Hoople in 1969. The band’s name was borrowed from Willard Manus’ 1966 novel.

In addition to playing guitar, Ralphs was the lead singer on some of Mott the Hoople’s songs, including the 1970 album track “Thunderbuck Ram.”

His last appearance came on 1973’s “Mott” album, shortly after the band achieved its biggest commercial success with “All the Young Dudes,” an endearing anthem of the glam-rock era produced and written by David Bowie.

More: Bruce Springsteen is releasing his ‘Lost Albums’: The songs you haven’t heard but need to

Ralphs had met Rodgers, who fronted blues-rock group Free, in 1971. A jam session with the singer prompted him to depart Mott the Hoople and (with Rodgers) form Bad Company. The band also included Kirke and King Crimson bassist/singer Boz Burrell, who died in 2006.

Bad Company’s 1974 debut included the guitar-swinger “Can’t Get Enough,” written by Ralphs. He also took “Ready for Love” – which he penned for Mott the Hoople’s “All the Young Dudes” album – to Bad Company, which turned it into a signature song.

Ralphs stayed with Bad Company until the original band dissolved in 1982 after producing enduring rock hits “Rock ‘n’ Roll Fantasy,” “Feel Like Makin’ Love” and the eponymous “Bad Company.”

Ralphs rejoined the band several times during the past few decades to play live shows, including one 2008 concert in South Florida with Rodgers and Kirke. He also reunited with Mott the Hoople for a pair of London shows in 2009 and stayed musically active with The Mick Ralphs Blues Band, which he formed in 2011.

Ralphs is survived by his partner Susie Chavasse, whom the statement called the “love of his life,” his two children and three stepchildren.

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British guitarist and songwriter Mick Ralphs, co-founder of supergroup Bad Company, circa 1974.

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With all the talk of drones and unexplained theatrics in the skies as of late you have to wonder. Have aliens walked among us since the dawn of time? As a fan of the shows Ancient Aliens, Skinwalker Ranch and of course E.T., like many I’ve always been fascinated with the idea of extra-terrestrials. The history of UFO sightings spans centuries, encompassing a wide range of phenomena that have intrigued, puzzled, and sometimes alarmed people across the globe. This article will take you through the evolution of UFO sightings, from ancient accounts to modern-day encounters, highlighting significant incidents that have contributed to the ongoing debate and fascination with unidentified flying objects.

Ancient Beginnings

The story of UFO sightings begins in ancient times. Texts, artworks, and even cave paintings from different cultures hint at encounters with celestial phenomena or beings that could not be explained by the knowledge at the time.

For instance, ancient Indian texts such as the Mahabharata and the Ramayana mention vimanas, flying machines that were used by the gods.

The Middle Ages to the Renaissance

During the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, there were numerous accounts of mysterious objects seen in the sky.

Chronicles from this period describe sightings of strange stars, fiery globes, and cross-shaped objects traversing the heavens, often interpreted through a religious lens as signs from God or omens.

One of the most famous sightings occurred in Nuremberg, Germany, in 1561.

Residents observed what they described as an aerial battle, followed by the appearance of a large black triangular object and a crash-landing outside the city.

This event was documented in the local newspaper, the Nuremberg Gazette.

The 19th Century: Airship Sightings

The 19th century saw a series of “airship” sightings across the United States, particularly during the 1896-1897 period.

Witnesses reported seeing powered, dirigible-like vehicles equipped with searchlights and sometimes occupants piloting them.

These sightings occurred before human flight was a reality, making them particularly puzzling and sensational at the time.

Echoes of Impermanence: The Rise and Fall of Ancient Civilizations and Their Lessons for Today (msn.com)

The Modern Era of UFOs

The modern era of UFO sightings began in earnest in the 20th century, with two pivotal events that shaped public and governmental interest in the phenomenon. 

– 1947, Kenneth Arnold Incident: The term “flying saucer” was coined after private pilot Kenneth Arnold reported seeing nine crescent-shaped objects flying at high speeds near Mount Rainier, Washington.

This incident garnered national media attention and is often considered the start of the modern UFO era.

– 1947, Roswell Incident: Perhaps the most famous UFO incident in history occurred near Roswell, New Mexico.

A rancher discovered mysterious wreckage on his land, leading to claims of a recovered alien spacecraft.

The U.S. military stated it was a crashed weather balloon, but the incident has remained at the heart of UFO conspiracy theories.

US says UFO sightings likely secret military tests (bbc.com)

Government Involvement

The increasing number of ‘UFO’ sightings over the years led to governmental investigations.

In the United States, projects such as Project Blue Book (1952-1969) were initiated by the U.S. Air Force to study UFO sightings.

Although officially it concluded that most sightings were misidentifications of natural phenomena or conventional aircraft, the closure of such projects only fueled more speculation and conspiracy theories about government cover-ups.

22 Items You Will Need In Case of a Societal Collapse

Global Sightings

UFO sightings are not limited to the United States; they are a global phenomenon.

From the mass sighting over the Nuremberg skies in the 16th century to the Westall UFO encounter in Australia in 1966, where over 200 students and teachers witnessed an unexplained object land and then take off at incredible speed, to the recent 2004 Nimitz encounter recorded by U.S. Navy pilots, UFO sightings continue to captivate the public’s imagination worldwide.

Conclusion

As we can see, the history of UFO sightings is rich and varied, spanning several different eras and cultures. While many sightings can be explained through scientific analysis as natural phenomena or human-made objects, a small percentage remain unexplained, continuing to intrigue both the public and researchers. With the U.S. government’s recent acknowledgment of unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) and the release of declassified videos, interest in UFOs has surged, suggesting that the fascination with what might be flying in our skies is far from over.

What are your thoughts? Let me know in the comments!

Next read>>>13 Modern Civilizations Least to Most Likely to Collapse (10 – 50 years)

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Though his lab in Skokie, Illinois, is thousands of miles from the deserts of Africa, Timur Islamoglu spends his days thinking about how to find enough water in that arid environment. 

Islamoglu, a lead research scientist at the Materials Discovery Research Institute (MDRI), is working to develop substances with just the right combination of qualities to capture moisture from dry air and turn it into a sustainable source of drinking water. He’s targeting arid regions with relative humidities below 30 percent. “Those are the areas that require these technologies, because climate change is expected to exacerbate droughts and reduce precipitation in these already dry regions, intensifying the need for alternative water sources,” Islamoglu says.  

Sustainability is the primary focus for MDRI, the newest division of UL Research Institutes (ULRI). Launched in 2022, MDRI opened its state-of-the-art laboratory in September 2024, complete with equipment for automating chemical synthesis and data collection for use with machine-learning techniques. The lab’s goal is to tackle the problems of climate change and energy storage with projects aimed at providing safe drinking water, removing excess carbon, and finding more efficient ways to create, store, and use hydrogen as an alternative and clean fuel source. 

“Everyone in the world deserves safe drinking water,” says Stuart Miller, vice president and executive director of MDRI, and providing cheap access to power has great potential to lift people out of poverty. “The greatest challenge that we have now is, how do we do that and still be good stewards of the planet so that we don’t add any carbon dioxide?” Miller says. Developing better materials can help.

Digital-first materials 

In the 170 years since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, humans have developed all sorts of useful materials to create our modern world. Many of them are petroleum-based. But with carbon from fossil fuels rapidly heating the planet, and a population that could reach 10 billion in the 2050s, humanity needs to move away from petroleum and discover new materials for energy storage and production, Miller says. Finding candidates through trial and error would involve sifting through many combinations of different materials, “and we don’t have the time,” he says. “We don’t have 170 years.” 

So MDRI is taking what its leaders call a digital-first approach. That means combining the expertise of materials scientists and chemists with automated equipment for synthesizing chemicals; a nanoprinter for uniting the generation, combination and deposition of nanoparticle catalysts in one automated process for renewable-energy applications; and sensors that collect a wide range of data, including the humidity in a given lab on a given day. All  that is fed into machine-learning models that can accelerate the discovery process.

To supply arid regions with water, Islamoglu is working on porous materials that can draw moisture out of low-humidity air much as a sponge would. The approach is material-agnostic, so the MDRI team is looking for an inexpensive candidate to capture water from the air. The trick lies in finding the right balance of various characteristics: for example, in low-humidity conditions, the pores have to be small enough to capture the water molecules and concentrate them so they can condense. The materials can’t be too hydrophobic—water-repellent—or they won’t collect the moisture. But they can’t hold the water too tightly, either, or they’d require high temperatures (200 to 300 degrees Celsius) to release it, and generating the energy to reach such temperatures would be expensive. 

Because different climates, such as mildly or highly humid regions, often require different porous-material specifications to optimize water harvesting from the air, that’s also an active research area at MDRI. Water shortages are a growing problem, even in the U.S. and Europe, where food production consumes large quantities of fresh water and climate change alters rainfall patterns. A recent United Nations report lists several developed countries that could suffer from water scarcity by 2040. 

Water into fuel  

A slightly different version of the same material could capture carbon dioxide either directly from air or industrial sources; then it could be converted into something harmless or used to produce new petrochemicals without extracting more oil from the ground. For carbon capture, the pore size of a material is less important than its chemical composition, which allows it to interact with and trap the carbon dioxide, Islamoglu says.

Another way to combat carbon emissions is to use hydrogen-fed fuel cells to produce energy. One important component of a hydrogen-based system is the electrolyzer, which splits water into hydrogen and oxygen. At MDRI, lead scientist Jeff Wu is working to develop better catalysts that make the splitting process more efficient. Existing electrolyzers use rare and expensive precious metals, including platinum and ruthenium. Wu is searching for catalysts that work just as well but are made of cheaper and more abundant metals, such as iron, nickel, or copper.

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With a provocative title and over 175 comments at the time of writing, a thread in the r/Parenting subreddit is getting a lot of attention because a parent has admitted to loving their kids equally, but not liking them all the same.

In the post titled, “The dirty secret my parents never told me,” the Redditor says they believed growing up in a “somewhat large family” that their parents loved all the kids equally. “Now that I’ve been a parent, I think that actually was true,” they add.

Then, the poster goes on to drop the bombshell confession: “But what I didn’t understand, until I had my own kids, is that I wouldn’t like them all equally.”

Loving Your Children vs. Liking Them

The Redditor says one of their kids is a lot like them in all the good ways, while the other reminds them of themselves “in all the cringe-worthy ways.” For instance, this child is “emotionally needy” and “high maintenance.” A third child “is always lying and getting into trouble, and fighting with the rest of their siblings.”

Again, the poster stresses that all the kids are loved equally. “But do I like being around them all equally? Hell no.” They then go on to share that although this realization used to cause a lot of guilt, having the same feelings about your children is “just not the way it works out.”

Finally, the Redditor says that being your kids’ friend is not the primary job of a parent. “It’s to love them and get them ready to function on their own in the world. And I don’t need to like being around them in order to do that,” the poster says.

The Post Was a Conversation Starter For Sure!

Not surprisingly, the hot-button post has divided commenters. 

Many can relate hard to what the poster said, with one sharing, “I have four kids. I love and enjoy them all for different reasons. They also all uniquely irritate me in their own ways.”

Many comments were in a similar vein to this one: “I love all my kids the same, and quite honestly, they all take turns stressing me out or melting my heart completely. I literally couldn’t tell you which ones I like better on a consistent basis because it’s always changing!”

Dozens of commenters agreed that which of their kids they like the most varies by the day, hour, or even minute, and often it’s age and stage-related. For instance, teenagers and toddlers understandably make liking your kids all the time a challenge for so many parents who responded to this thread.

But many Reddit users reacted differently to the share, with one cautioning the original poster, “I hope you do a good job not letting it show though.” Meanwhile, another noted that kids can sense how their parents feel about them versus their siblings.

“It’s not nice growing up in a house where you know you’re liked a lot less than your siblings,” someone else acknowledged, while another poster agreed, “My entire life, I felt this from my mom. I’ve always said that she loves me because she’s my mom and has to, but doesn’t actually like me. We can always tell.”

Yet another Reddit user had an even more pointed message for the poster, writing, “You have a favorite, and just by how you describe your other child, it’s probably pretty obvious to everyone around you, including that child… which is probably why they’re acting out.”

To be fair, the post was commended by several Redditors, like one who said, “This is really insightful. It makes so much sense that love and liking can be different emotions. It’s tough to balance those feelings as a parent. I admire your honesty in sharing this struggle.”

And someone else defended the poster against critics by saying in part, “I know you’re a great parent. S****y parents aren’t making posts on Reddit second guessing themselves on how they’re doing as parents.”

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Photo:  Parents / Zing Images via Getty Images

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Half of the universe’s ordinary matter was missing — until now.

Astronomers have used mysterious but powerful explosions of energy called fast radio bursts (FRBs) to detect the universe’s missing “normal” matter for the first time.

This previously missing stuff isn’t dark matter, the mysterious substance that accounts for around 85% of the material universe but remains invisible because it doesn’t interact with light. Instead, it is ordinary matter made out of atoms (composed of baryons) that does interact with light but has until now just been too dark to see.

Though this puzzle might not quite get as much attention as the dark matter conundrum — at least we knew what this missing matter is, while the nature of dark matter is unknown — but its AWOL status has been a frustrating problem in cosmology nonetheless. The missing baryonic matter problem has persisted because it is spread incredibly thinly through halos that surround galaxies and in diffuse clouds that drift in the space between galaxies.

Now, a team of astronomers discovered and accounted for this missing everyday matter by using FRBs to illuminate wispy structures lying between us and the distant sources of these brief but powerful bursts of radio waves.

“The FRBs shine through the fog of the intergalactic medium, and by precisely measuring how the light slows down, we can weigh that fog, even when it’s too faint to see,” study team leader Liam Connor, a researcher at the Center for Astrophysics, Harvard & Smithsonian (CfA), said in a statement.

How FRBs Illuminate Missing Matter

FRBs are pulses of radio waves that often last for mere milliseconds, but in this brief time they can emit as much energy as the sun radiates in 30 years. Their origins remain something of a mystery. That’s because the short duration of these flashes and the fact that most occur only once make them notoriously hard to trace back to their source.

Yet for some time, their potential to help “weigh” the matter between galaxies has been evident to astronomers. Though thousands of FRBs have been discovered, not all were suitable for this purpose. That’s because, to act as a gauge of the matter between the FRB and Earth, the energy burst has to have a localized point of origin with a known distance from our planet. Thus far, astronomers have only managed to perform this localization for about 100 FRBs.

Connor and colleagues, including California Institute of Technology (Caltech) assistant professor Vikram Ravi, utilized 69 FRBs from sources at distances of between 11.7 million to about 9.1 billion light-years away. The FRB from this maximum distance, FRB 20230521B, is the most distant FRB source ever discovered.

Of the 69 FRBs used by the team, 39 were discovered by a network of 110 radio telescopes located at Caltech’s Owen Valley Radio Observatory (OVRO) called the Deep Synoptic Array (DSA). The DSA was built with the specific mission of spotting and localizing FRBs to their home galaxies.

Once this had been done, instruments at Hawaii’s W. M. Keck Observatory and at the Palomar Observatory near San Diego were used the measure the distance between Earth and these FRB-source galaxies.

Many of the remaining FRBs were discovered by the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP), a network of radio telescopes in Western Australia that has excelled in the detection and localization of FRBs since it began operations.

As FRBs pass through matter, the light that comprises them is split into different wavelengths. This is just like what happens when sunlight passes through a prism and creates a rainbow diffraction pattern.

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In 2016, Lauren Sánchez, then 46, was flying high. The daughter of an aviation specialist, she had a helicopter pilots’ license but had found herself wanting more. She wasn’t tight on cash — she was married to Patrick Whitesell, a Hollywood superagent known for helping launch the careers of such talent as Ben Affleck and Matt Damon — and she purchased an Astar chopper, a famously tricky aircraft, nicknamed the Squirrel because of how dodgy it feels to land. Then she sought out Steve Stafford, an Astar expert, for advanced training. Stafford had never before encountered a woman who wanted to fly the Squirrel. Learning the proper techniques was grueling work, but Sánchez was unfazed. “I really couldn’t believe her energy level,” he said. “She just never ran out of gas. I mean, if she could take a helicopter and fly it to the surface of the moon, she’d do that.”

Back on land, Sánchez would soon prove similarly unshakeable. Sometime in the coming months, she would began an extramarital relationship with Jeff Bezos. By the summer of 2018, when Bezos had become the richest man on earth, Sánchez’s estranged brother, Michael, was in conversations with the Enquirer, arranging to publish private text messages between the illicit couple. When the lid finally blew off, that January, Sánchez appeared steady and smiling. She and Bezos leaned headfirst into the attention, and this is the way the pair has lived since: publicly, proudly, and with pomp, as though to get ahead of their own tailwind.

When the affair first came to light, Bezos was still married to MacKenzie Scott, the brainy and discreet Princeton alum with whom he shared four children, who’d helped him get Amazon off the ground back in 1994. Sánchez, who had three children of her own — two with Whitesell and one with her ex-boyfriend, the former NFL tight end Tony Gonzalez — was a sharp pivot. A broadcaster and a glitzed-up woman about town in Hollywood, she was an easy target for anyone prone to slinging gold-digger accusations. Amazon shareholders were spooked by news of the scandal, and the company’s stock price fell 5 percent. The whole thing seemed likely to be a short-lived, tawdry incident.

In 2016, Lauren Sánchez, then 46, was flying high. The daughter of an aviation specialist, she had a helicopter pilots’ license but had found herself wanting more. She wasn’t tight on cash — she was married to Patrick Whitesell, a Hollywood superagent known for helping launch the careers of such talent as Ben Affleck and Matt Damon — and she purchased an Astar chopper, a famously tricky aircraft, nicknamed the Squirrel because of how dodgy it feels to land. Then she sought out Steve Stafford, an Astar expert, for advanced training. Stafford had never before encountered a woman who wanted to fly the Squirrel. Learning the proper techniques was grueling work, but Sánchez was unfazed. “I really couldn’t believe her energy level,” he said. “She just never ran out of gas. I mean, if she could take a helicopter and fly it to the surface of the moon, she’d do that.”

Back on land, Sánchez would soon prove similarly unshakeable. Sometime in the coming months, she would began an extramarital relationship with Jeff Bezos. By the summer of 2018, when Bezos had become the richest man on earth, Sánchez’s estranged brother, Michael, was in conversations with the Enquirer, arranging to publish private text messages between the illicit couple. When the lid finally blew off, that January, Sánchez appeared steady and smiling. She and Bezos leaned headfirst into the attention, and this is the way the pair has lived since: publicly, proudly, and with pomp, as though to get ahead of their own tailwind.

When the affair first came to light, Bezos was still married to MacKenzie Scott, the brainy and discreet Princeton alum with whom he shared four children, who’d helped him get Amazon off the ground back in 1994. Sánchez, who had three children of her own — two with Whitesell and one with her ex-boyfriend, the former NFL tight end Tony Gonzalez — was a sharp pivot. A broadcaster and a glitzed-up woman about town in Hollywood, she was an easy target for anyone prone to slinging gold-digger accusations. Amazon shareholders were spooked by news of the scandal, and the company’s stock price fell 5 percent. The whole thing seemed likely to be a short-lived, tawdry incident.

The couple, however, doubled down, announcing their respective divorces and setting out on a world tour of PDA and aggressively good times. There they were, enjoying burgers and pizza together in the West Village. There they were, canoodling behind the royals at Wimbledon. There they were, in

the prime-center orchestra seats of Hadestown on Broadway. The couple became so ubiquitous that by 2020, they could go to happy hour at Tribeca watering hole Weather Up and enjoy drinks without attracting much of a fuss.

Next week, the Sánchez-Bezos scandal will finally be reborn as a blessed union. The exact location of the ceremony has yet to be confirmed, but it will reportedly take place in the vicinity of the San Giorgio Maggiore Island in Venice — where, according to local news, the two have booked dozens of the city’s water taxis, as well as its most lavish hotels, including the Gritti Palace and Aman.

Some see it all as a coup for Sánchez. “This seems, to me, to be the pinnacle of a long career of social climbing,” said Matt Belloni, the Hollywood reporter behind the podcast The Town and the entertainment newsletter “What I’m Hearing,” from Puck. “She did it. She made it.”

But Sánchez is not just any arriviste. She is, by many accounts, an untamable force: her drive met by equal charm, sociability, and intelligence. One Hollywood producer I spoke with compared her and her ex-husband, Whitesell: He was “charming … but as vapid as you can get.” Sánchez, on the other hand, well, “I would go to basketball games with her, and think … Okay, she can hang out. She could talk.”

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Photo-Illustration: Joe Darrow/Source Photographs: Getty Images

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In Southport, North Carolina, the realities of a historic storm played out in real time during AccuWeather’s live broadcast when veteran storm chaser Aaron Jayjack witnessed a man’s SUV sinking into the bridge

Though the tropical rainstorm that rolled through North Carolina on Monday won’t be named, residents across the state, particularly along the coast, will remember this storm for a long time. Coastal counties like Brunswick and New Hanover received more than 20 inches of rain, with some locations receiving 4-5 inches of rain per hour.

In Southport, North Carolina, which received some 23 inches in 48 hours, the realities of the storm played out in real-time. During AccuWeather’s live broadcast, veteran storm chaser Aaron Jayjack was reporting from a bridge above a creek when a portion of the bridge collapsed, taking a man’s SUV with it.

Jayjack told AccuWeather broadcasters Bernie Rayno and Bree Guy that he needed to help that man, a good example of how storm chasers can also serve as vital first responders. When he was able to return to live reporting, Jayjack delivered good news: with the help of other bystanders, he was able to rescue the motorist, who only had minor injuries.

Videos shot by AccuWeather reporters on the scene show cars and roads underwater in Southport and Carolina Beach. And just after noon, the town of Oak Island, 25 miles southwest of Wilmington, North Carolina, declared a state of emergency.

On the ground, Jayjack, who has been studying, chasing and tracking severe weather since the 1990s, put the historic storm in perspective.

“I feel like this is the most intense rain band I’ve ever experienced,” Jayjack said. “It was pure chaos for 30-45 minutes as that band came through.”

He added that some parking lots looked like lakes.

The incident also serves as an important lesson. Jayjack said he saw a dozen or even two dozen cars go through the same spot within the previous half hour before the bridge eventually gave way.

“That’s why it’s important not to drive through floodwaters because you never know what’s going on underneath,” he emphasized.

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Storm chaser Aaron Jayjack was live on the AccuWeather Network when a bridge collapsed beneath a vehicle trying to cross a flooded bridge. Fortunately, the driver was able to be pulled out.

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