Florida & Beyond, and All Opinions

Will the next human to walk on the Moon speak English or Mandarin? In all, 12 Americans landed on the lunar surface between 1969 and 1972. Now, both the US and China are preparing to send humans back there this decade. However, the US lunar programme is delayed, in part because the spacesuits and lunar-landing vehicle are not ready. Meanwhile, China has pledged to put astronauts on the Moon by 2030 – and it has a habit of sticking to timelines.

There’s a reason review sites like Yelp are so popular. No one wants to spend their hard-earned money on a dud product, or fork over cash for a bad meal. So we’ll seek advice from strangers and use various clues to judge if a particular review is authentic and reliable. But sometimes these cues can lead shoppers down the wrong path. Other times, the reviews are simply fake.

Gun owners aren’t just protecting against the specific threat of physical violence. Owners are also using a gun to protect their psychological selves. Owning a gun helps them feel more in control of the world around them and more able to live meaningful, purposeful lives that connect to the people and communities they care for.

The most common concern about bringing up religion in the workplace is that it will lead to conflict – including conflict from people trying to change each other’s beliefs. But workers appreciate when their employers take active steps to let employees know that religious accommodations are available and that religious expression in general is not forbidden. Having upfront conversations about what is or is not appropriate – not only legally but socially – can go a long way toward setting boundaries.

The Israeli parliament’s vote on Oct. 28, 2024, to ban the United Nations agency that provides relief for Palestinian refugees is likely to affect millions of people – it also fits a pattern. Aid for refugees, particularly Palestinian refugees, has long been politicized, and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, or UNRWA, has been targeted throughout its 75-year history.

Nearly half of adolescents and three-quarters of adults in the U.S. were classified as being clinically overweight or obese in 2021. The rates have more than doubled compared with 1990. Obesity has slowed health improvements and life expectancy in the U.S. compared with other high-income nations. It increases the risk of diabetes, heart attack, stroke, cancer and mental health disorders.

The punishing measure against non-profits is part of a strategy to preempt opposition to Republican policies and encourage self-censorship. It’s a way for the GOP to try to restrict what activists and nonprofit organizations can say or do. And, essentially, it’s a threat to political opponents of President-elect Donald Trump.

This superstition about black cats and other black animals in general has shaped people’s preferences about animals. It’s left its mark on things such as lower adoption rates for black cats and beliefs that black cats are more aggressive. Yet, these biases are unfounded.

All observatories have a list of science objectives before they switch on, but it is their unexpected discoveries that can have the biggest impact. Many surprise advances in cosmology were driven by new technology, and the next telescopes have powerful capabilities.

James Earl Jones was looking to change the culture. He was trying to change the country’s understanding of what it means to fight – and what a freedom fighter is. Sometimes, activism can be as simple as making art to the best of your abilities – or, as W.E.B. Du Bois wrote, “to use beauty to set the world right.”

A newly passed “vice and virtue” law is among the most repressive and discriminatory measures ever enacted by the Taliban, an Islamist fundamentalist group controlling Afghanistan. The new law seeks to completely silence women in public. They are prohibited from speaking, singing or praying aloud. The law also attempts to literally erase them from view, ordering women to cover every part of their body and face in public.