A slim pool is a great analogy....

Reflecting Pool woes: Trump administration turns to hydrogen peroxide in latest bid to beat back algae

By Sunlen Serfaty, Kit Maher, Dugald McConnell

President Donald Trump’s more than $13 million Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool renovation was completed just over a week ago, with its iconic 2,800 square feet refilled with 6.5 million gallons of clean water.

But already it’s been hit with a problem that has haunted administrations for decades: algae.

Over the past week, the Trump administration has jumped into action, sending crews clad in hip-waders to vacuum up the clumps of algae and on Tuesday, dispatching workers to dump gallons of hydrogen peroxide in the pool.

Nevertheless, the pool has grown increasingly into a murky shade of green – calling into question whether the president’s goal of cleaning and beautifying a pool he once disparaged as “disgusting” and “not representative of the country” can ever really be met.

A worker who spoke to CNN on Tuesday quipped that it would take “an entire lifetime” to clean the pool.

The Department of Interior says “state of the art” filtration known as the “ozone nanobubbler” has been installed and is working.

“Due to deploying the advanced nanobubbler technology, the algae is dead and being vacuumed up as we speak,” a Department of Interior spokesperson told CNN. “The nanobubbler technology has successfully destroyed the algae bloom that has plagued every pool reopening.”

The spokesperson also told CNN that hydrogen peroxide is being used as a “milder treatment” for algae in addition to the nanobubbler, adding that it has “no harmful side effects to marine life or to the environment.”

Other parties involved with the Reflecting Pool’s refurbishing distanced themselves or stayed mum on the algae problem.

“My company had nothing to do with water, only water proofing and water tightening,” Eddie Wood, of Atlantic Industrial Coatings, the company that resurfaced the pool, told CNN. He added that he is proud of the part of the work his company did on the project.

Public records show that an Ohio company, Greenwater Services, was hired to install the filtration system. Its website boasts that the company provides “the only water purification system in the world whose patented technology is backed by government and academic research” and that its “breakthrough solutions significantly reduce toxins, algae, microcystins, nitrates, and phosphates from contaminated water.”

The company did not return CNN’s request for comment about the current algae situation.

The White House did not comment on whether Trump is aware of cleanup efforts or has spoken to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum about it, directing questions back to the Interior department.

$300 billion problem

Trump’s $300 billion problem on the Iran agreement

Analysis by Aaron Blake

President Donald Trump’s nascent agreement with Iran is beset by problems right now as many conservatives balk at it, but at the top of the list may be the issue of money flowing to Tehran.

In an interview with CBS News Monday morning, Vice President JD Vance seemed to tacitly confirm the premise that Iran could be given “access” to a reconstruction fund worth as much as $300 billion.

Ever since that interview, the administration has strained to clarify things. It has emphasized that this money wouldn’t come from US taxpayers. Instead, it would be money from other Gulf countries that would only be available if Iran complies with a peace deal.

Vance said late Monday on Fox News that “we would invite other countries — not us, but other countries — to invest in” Iran. He echoed that Tuesday, telling Megyn Kelly that the US wouldn’t let the United Arab Emirates, for example, “invest in Iran, unless the Iranians change their behavior.”

Fair enough.

Except these are distinctions that Republicans — and Trump especially — have dismissed or even excoriated in the past.

And that’s when the dollar amount was significantly smaller than $300 billion.

When the Obama administration and other countries cut a nuclear deal with Iran in 2015, it included giving Iran access to billions of dollars. In that case, it wasn’t money from other countries, but instead Iran’s own assets that had been frozen in foreign banks under sanctions. Estimates generally placed the dollar figure around $50 billion.

But this nuance was almost always absent from Trump’s rhetoric. He said the concession amounted to providing the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism with a financial windfall, even falsely claiming it was in “cash.” He cast it as unthinkable and a sign of American leaders’ weakness and poor negotiating skills.

Those comments could come back to bite him today.

“Iran receives a windfall of $150 billion, which will no doubt fund terrorism around the world,” he wrote in a September 2015 op-ed in USA Today. Trump often cited the inflated figure of $150 billion.

He said that same month in Oklahoma City that “we’re giving them $150 billion in order to create terror all over the world.”

At a December 2015 Republican presidential debate, Trump called it a “horrible, disgusting, absolutely incompetent deal with Iran where they get $150 billion,” adding: “They’re a terrorist nation.”

“I just don’t understand how we could have made a deal where we’re giving somebody that’s a terror nation $150 billion,” he said the next month in Iowa City.

The situations aren’t completely parallel, in that unfrozen Iranian assets aren’t the same as money from other countries. But both involve money that isn’t from US taxpayers but is suddenly being made available to Iran as an incentive in a deal.

Republicans had frequently argued in 2015 that such money was “fungible” — i.e. that even if the funds can’t be used directly for terrorism, they could be used to replace money that could then be diverted for terrorist uses.

Trump returned to the talking point amid tensions with Iran late in his first term and during his failed 2020 reelection race.

“So they paid $150 [billion] — 150, think of that,” he said at a White House event in September 2019. “And how can you do — how could you possibly do a thing like that? They paid all of that money in cash.”

(Again, the US did not pay the money in cash, and it wasn’t $150 billion.)

He added after ordering the killing Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani in January 2020 that “the Obama administration enabled and emboldened the Iranian regime. They gave Iran $150 billion, including $1.7 billion in hard, cold cash. Can you imagine?”

(The $1.7 billion refers to a settlement reached over $400 million in Iranian funds that were frozen in 1979.)

“The Iran nuclear deal signed by President Obama gave them $150 billion, and that’s when the real terror started,” Trump added the next day in an interview with Fox News.

And toward the end of the 2020 campaign, Trump repeatedly predicted that, if Joe Biden won the election, similar deals would result.

“If Biden ever got in, they’d give them another $150 billion, like they did,” Trump said in August 2020 in Yuma, Arizona. “The dumbest deal I’ve ever seen.”

“Iran will make another crazy deal where they give them $150 billion or $1.8 billion in cash,” he said in October 2020 in Tampa.

Even after losing the 2020 election, while campaigning for GOP Senate candidates in Georgia runoffs, Trump warned of a repeat.

“I think they want to start it up again. Can you believe this?” Trump said in Valdosta, Georgia. “I wonder if they’ll give them $150 billion? But, no, they’ll give them 250.”

On Monday, Trump’s own vice president suggested Iran could be given access to a fund with even more than that.

Possible supernova remnant

NASA's Chandra discovers possible supernova remnant in galactic center

by Chandra X-ray Center

Using data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, astronomers may have found a supernova remnant in an intriguing neighborhood in the middle of our galaxy. A paper describing these new findings was published in The Astrophysical Journal.

Supernova remnants are the expanding remains of exploded stars and provide elements—like iron, oxygen and silicon—that are critical for the formation of planets and for life as we know it to form and flourish.

This new supernova remnant, if confirmed, would be one of the closest ever discovered to the supermassive black hole at the central region of the Milky Way galaxy, an exotic region crammed with massive stars, long threads of magnetic fields, and dense clouds of gas orbiting rapidly around the Galactic Center.

A new composite image of this region contains X-rays from Chandra and ESA's (European Space Agency's) XMM-Newton mission (shown in blue), as well as radio data from the MeerKAT telescope (shown in red) in South Africa. These have been combined with an optical image from the Pan-STARRS telescopes in Hawaii (red, green and blue). The plane of the galaxy runs horizontally from left to right in the image, and the central black hole is off to the left of the image.

The evidence for the new supernova remnant, located about 26,000 light-years from Earth, comes from X-ray data from Chandra and XMM-Newton. The X-ray data reveal a "blob" of X-ray emission that may come from the remains of a massive star that self-destructed as a supernova, buried within the larger cloud of expanding gas.

The location of this suspected supernova remnant in the image is labeled with a circle. It is in a bubble of gas that has had electrons stripped away from hydrogen—called an "H II region"—surrounding a massive, young star. This bubble is a bright source of radio emission called Sagittarius C.

If this is indeed a supernova remnant, then it is expanding at about 3.2 million kph (2 million mph) and is at least about 1,700 years old. Previously, observations with NASA's now-retired SOFIA (Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy) mission had shown evidence for an expanding shell of gas surrounding Sagittarius C. This gave astronomers a hint that a stellar explosion had occurred in the same spot.

The long filaments seen in the radio image are caused by energetic particles traveling along magnetic fields that are mostly directed perpendicular to the plane of the galaxy.

The nuclear fusion engines of stars create elements from hydrogen and helium that were abundant at the beginning of the universe. When stars explode at the end of their lives as supernovae, they send these newly synthesized elements into interstellar space and provide material for the next generation of stars and planets.

The team of astronomers searched the X-ray data for signs of increased amounts of key elements in the remnant, which would have been caused by the stellar explosion blasting them into space. While they did not see an enhancement, this could imply that the stellar debris has already mixed with the surrounding gas.

An alternative explanation for the X-ray blob is that the hot gas comes from a collection of massive stars in the region. The authors of the recent study do not think this explanation is likely because the X-ray emission from the blob is more than 10 times brighter than the X-ray emission of large, known stellar clusters with bright, massive stars.

An additional image shows data from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope added to the X-ray and radio data. The light blue color represents infrared light from gas in the H II region, and the darker blue depicts X-rays from the supernova remnant candidate, on the right side of the image. X-rays near the center of the image are associated with the H II region, possibly caused by material blown away by massive stars that has heated gas to millions of degrees, producing X-rays.

The study's authors are Zhenlin Zhu and Mark Morris of the University of California, Los Angeles; Gabriele Ponti of Italy's National Institute for Astrophysics; and Ping Zhou of Nanjing University in China.

Lithium spike

Lithium spike reveals sun-like star likely swallowed its planet

by Matt Davenport, University of Michigan

A team of astronomers, led by Brooke Kotten of the University of Michigan, has shown that TOI-5882—a sunlike star located some 1,300 light-years away—has likely eaten one of its planets.

Although a star might seem like the ultimate incinerator for destroying evidence, the team still found telling clues in the chemical composition of TOI-5882, specifically in its unusually high lithium concentration.

"You are what you eat, right?" said Kotten, a graduate student researcher in the U-M Department of Astronomy and lead author of the new report in The Astrophysical Journal. "We know that there's much more lithium in planetary material than there is in stars. So if a star eats a planet, it's going to take on a bunch of lithium."

When a star consumes a planet, astronomers call it engulfment. Astronomically speaking, the process is incredibly fast, taking weeks or even days. That means astronomers can't rely on seeing an engulfment event as it happens, Kotten said, which is why it's important to develop methods that can help researchers study engulfment events after the fact.

"That's what makes this field so exciting. You really are solving a mystery," said Kotten, who started working on the study as an undergraduate student as part of the Lamat Program at the University of California, Santa Cruz. "We can't just watch the crime happen, so we have to work with all the clues we're given to figure out whodunit."

In working to solve these cases, astronomers can better understand how common planetary engulfment is and the different ways it can occur. For example, in roughly 5 billion years, our sun will enter the late stages of its lifetime and grow into what's called a red giant. As it swells, it will engulf Mercury, Venus and maybe Earth.

But TOI-5882 hasn't yet ballooned to the point where its expansion is a likely explanation for how it gulped down a planet. The team has floated an intriguing alternative, though: The star may have had an accomplice.

Also orbiting TOI-5882 is a giant ball of gas that's more than 20 times the mass of Jupiter, but still not quite big enough to ignite as a star. This object, called a brown dwarf, may have helped steer the engulfed planet into TOI-5882, but testing that theory will be the subject of its own separate study, Kotten said.

Building the case

Lithium is a powerful piece of forensic evidence because, although stars have some naturally, planets are heavily enriched in it, said Seth Jacobson, a senior author of the study and assistant professor at Michigan State University.

"Lithium atoms delivered by planetary engulfment to a star are like sports fans arriving at a stadium," he said. "There may already be a few early-arriving fans present, representing the initial amount of lithium in the stellar atmosphere, but they are quickly outnumbered."

Based on the amount of lithium the researchers observed, they suspect the planet that TOI-5882 engulfed had a mass somewhere between a couple of Earths and Neptune.

"The fact that we can look at a star 1,300 light-years away and say with confidence, 'This star has more lithium than you would expect,' is a testament to both the precision of modern instrumentation and the hard interpretive work that goes into making sense of that signal," said Melinda Soares-Furtado, a senior author of the study and assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin.

Fourteen experts from the U.S. and Chile came together for this project. A technique known as spectroscopy enabled the team to analyze light from TOI-5882 for signatures of lithium. From the star's spectra, the researchers could tell it had a high lithium content, but they then had to prove it was anomalously high.

So they put together a lineup of 62 control stars that were comparable in a variety of criteria, including age, mass and temperature. The team then compared TOI-5882 to that control group in multiple ways.

"And it's not like you have to cherry-pick the data to make it stand out. It's robust," Soares-Furtado said. "No matter how you slice it, TOI-5882 is so enriched in lithium it shows up as being at least in the 97th percentile."

The study also built on previous work by Soares-Furtado that indicated TOI-5882 could in fact be probed for signs of engulfment. She had explored the characteristics a star would need to have in order to show signs of engulfment events and, disappointingly, many stars do not fit the bill, she said. But TOI-5882 was one of the rare exceptions.

Interestingly, a few of the other stars within the control sample also showed high lithium concentrations, suggesting there may be other enrichment mechanisms at work for researchers to explore. As is often the case in science, answering one question can create new mysteries, which is exciting news for astronomers like Kotten.

"When I was growing up, I dreamed about becoming a private investigator," she said. "I think that explains a lot about where I ended up. I do feel like a detective."

Prompts Criticism From All Sides

Lack Of Details On Trump’s ‘Great’ Iran Deal Prompts Criticism From All Sides

BySiladitya Ray

The lack of details about the deal and its announcement on Truth Social prompted a lot of criticism from people on both sides of the political spectrum. Former Obama White House staffer and Pod Save America host, Tommy Vietor, wrote: “Ending the war as soon as possible is the best outcome left, but the truth is Trump accomplished none of his goals and lost the war to Iran. Iran’s nuclear program is not eliminated, nor are its ballistic missiles.” Former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul tweeted: “The Strait of Hormuz was open before Trump's war, so he cannot claim its reopening as a war ‘victory.’ Illogical.” Right-wing commentator and Fox News host Mark Levin, who backed Trump’s decision to go to war, also called out the lack of details, saying: “I have asked for days, why can't we, the people, see the damn MOU? Not through people briefed by an anonymous person. Honestly, I've never seen anything like this. If it is a great outcome for peace, then release it.” Mark Dubowitz, the CEO of the hawkish think tank Foundation for Defense of Democracies, wrote on X: “The Islamic Republic is not a problem that can be negotiated away. The only solution is maximum support for the Iranian people. Given the opportunity and assistance they need, they can cripple—and ultimately end—this terrorist regime.”

What Have Lawmakers Said About The Deal?

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a prominent Iran hawk, wrote on X that he was “pleased to hear” that a memorandum of understanding for reopening the Strait of Hormuz has been agreed to. However, the senator added, “I will be watching closely the ensuing negotiations regarding Iran’s nuclear program and other matters. I am somewhat concerned that Iran’s view of the agreement seems different than what the American negotiating team is claiming.” Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., who spearheaded a legislative push to force Trump to end the war, tweeted: “The ceasefire agreement with Iran with the opening of the Strait of Hormuz is welcome news. Democrats should support it…The war was a costly lesson for the US. As expected, Trump failed to bring about regime change. The terms seem no better than what Obama secured under the JCPOA nearly a decade ago.”

Israeli attacks

Israeli attacks, occupation in Lebanon violate MOU, Araghchi says

Somayeh Malekian

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Tuesday that ending the war with the U.S. and Israel "would not be completed" without Israel's withdrawal of the lands it has occupied in southern Lebanon during this war, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported.

Speaking at a meeting with foreign diplomats in Tehran, Araghchi said Iran will view any military attack on Lebanon by Israel and the continuation of its occupation as a "violation of the MOU."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjmain Netanyahu said on Monday that the Israel Defense Forces will not withdraw from the areas it has seized in Lebanon, Syria and the Gaza Strip.

Do you believe that???

'By Friday, everything will be fully open,' administration official says of Strait of Hormuz

Senior administration officials said Monday that the Strait of Hormuz should be fully open by Friday.

Michelle Stoddart

"In terms of returning traffic, I mean, we've been maybe getting as much as 25 ships through a day, you know. Now that we're through, I think they'll probably go to, you know, maybe 40 to 50 pretty quickly," an official said. "... By Friday, everything will be fully open. I think it will adjust very, very quickly, and I think obviously the prioritization will be on the heavy tankers, you know, the gas, the oils. I think that will actually flow very quickly."

“Just to be clear here, it takes a little bit of time, because you know you have mines in the Straits," the official continued. "But you will see significant increase in traffic in the Strait of Hormuz actually starting already, and that will ramp up slowly over time to the point where I think a week from now, two weeks from now, we probably won't return to normal in two weeks, but we will see a significant increase in Strait traffic.”

The official made clear that the memorandum of understanding ensured the Strait of Hormuz be “toll-free for 60 days,” with the expectation that it will become part of the “final agreement, as well.”

President Donald Trump, during a press spray with French President Emmanuel Macron at the G7, told reporters that the Strait of Hormuz is “already partially open” and said “on Friday, it will be completely opened.”

Israeli troops

Israeli troops won't withdraw from Lebanon, Katz says

Jordana Miller and Somayeh Malekian

Following Sunday's announcement of a memorandum of understanding between the U.S. and Iran, Israel's far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Defense Minister Israel Katz issued statements saying Israel will not withdraw from any territory it has seized.

"Israel is not subordinate to the United States, and we are an independent and sovereign state," Ben-Gvir said in a statement. "We must not withdraw from any territory that our fighters have occupied and cleared of terrorist infrastructure," he added.

Katz said that he and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are leading "a clear policy" under which the Israel Defense Forces "will remain in the security zones in Lebanon, Syria and Gaza indefinitely."

"The area will be cleared of local residents and all terrorist infrastructure, above and below ground -- including the houses in the contact villages that served as terrorist outposts -- will be destroyed," Katz said.

Netanyahu is yet to comment on the announced U.S.-Iran understanding.

Remember, he lies....

Trump says Iran deal is 'fair,' denies that US will invest 'any money'

By Emily Chang, Karen Travers and Justin Gomez

During a bilateral meeting with the Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani on Tuesday, President Donald Trump touted the memorandum of understanding that was reached between the U.S. and Iran, calling it a "fair" and "good" deal.

The president said that negotiations over Iran's nuclear program -- a contentious issue which is to be addressed in a 60-day negotiating window -- will be "actually easier" than reaching the MOU.

Trump also said that the U.S. is not investing "any money" in Iran, calling reports to the contrary "ridiculous."

"We have the right to go in someday and do, if I want to do something or somebody wants to do something, but we are not investing any money. We have no obligation to invest any money in Iran," Trump said.

Trump said he believes that the U.S.-Iran deal can survive even if Israel continues attacking Lebanon, with the president referring to the Israel-Hezbollah conflict there as a "minor war" with Hezbollah being a "pin-prick."

Nonetheless, Trump said he was "not happy" with Israel's recent attack on an apartment building in Beirut.

"Israel is fighting Hezbollah too long, and too many people are being killed, and you don't have to knock down an apartment house every time you're looking for somebody, because there are a lot of people in those apartment houses, and they're not all Hezbollah," he said.

"I suggested to Israel to let Syria take care of Hezbollah," Trump added.

"Without me, there would be no Israel, because no other president was willing to do what I did. I've had a great relationship with Bibi, but now Bibi has to be more responsible with respect to Lebanon," Trump said, referring to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Trump added that he still enjoys "a great relationship" with Netanyahu.

Trump said the deal with Iran ensures that Tehran will never pursue or acquire a nuclear weapon and threatened military action if it did so. "If they do, all hell will rain down on them, and they're not going to do that," he said.

Asked what economic opportunities could open for Iran if the two countries continue to cooperate, Trump did not specify but expressed hope that Iran would "do well."

B-52 crash

Air Force says B-52 crash carrying 8 at Edwards was 'not survivable'

By Olivia Hebert

A U.S. Air Force B-52 Stratofortress crashed shortly after taking off from Edwards Air Force Base on Monday.

The bomber went down on the Edwards airfield at 11:20 a.m., according to base spokesperson Mary Becerra. 

“Emergency crews immediately responded to the scene, and the situation is ongoing,” Becerra told SFGATE via email.

Later in the afternoon, an Air Force news release said that the bomber had been carrying eight people on “a routine test mission” and that “initial indications are that the crash was not survivable.”

Made by Boeing, the B-52 Stratofortress is among the oldest active aircraft still flying with the U.S. military, having first entered service in 1955, and it remains a cornerstone of the Air Force’s fleet. The Air Force operates 76 B-52Hs, which can carry both conventional and nuclear weapons. 

The last B-52 crash occurred in 2016, when a B-52H assigned to the 69th Expeditionary Bomb Squadron aborted a takeoff at Andersen Air Force Base in Guam, departed the runway and caught fire. All seven crew members escaped with minor injuries, but the aircraft was destroyed.