Voters in Dixville Notch cast midnight votes in the New Hampshire Republican primary© Faith Ninivaggi/Reuters

Dear Commons Community,

Nikki Haley is the winner of the Dixville Notch midnight primary vote kicking off the official start to the 2024 New Hampshire primary.

All six registered voters in Dixville Notch, a small New Hampshire north country town, voted for Nikki Haley as the clock struck midnight. Together, the group — composed of four registered Republicans and two registered undeclared voters — cast the first votes in the first primary in the country.

“A great start to a great day in New Hampshire,” said Nikki Haley in a statement following the sweep. “Thank you Dixville Notch!”

The process from start to finish took a total 10 minutes.

After the national anthem was played, all six voters walked one-by-one into the voting booth. The ballots were subsequently hand-counted and read out loud before being scribbled on a white board as journalists from all over the country began reporting the results live on air.

The tradition dates back nearly 60 years, but this year Dixville Notch is the only town in New Hampshire that voted at midnight.

Officials with two other towns that traditionally join in on the midnight voting — Millsfield and Hart’s Location — have decided to hold more traditional, daytime voting hours this year

In the 2020 New Hampshire primary, Michael Bloomberg won the primary after receiving three write-in votes, with Pete Buttigieg and Bernie Sanders each receiving one vote.

The news media will be all over the New Hampshire primary this evening!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Almost 40% of jobs around the world could be affected by the rise of artificial intelligence (AI), a trend that is likely to deepen inequality, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

In a blog post yesterday, IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva called for governments to establish social safety nets and offer retraining programs to counter the impact of AI.

“In most scenarios, AI will likely worsen overall inequality, a troubling trend that policymakers must proactively address to prevent the technology from further stoking social tensions,” she wrote ahead of the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, where the topic is set to be high on the agenda.

Sam Altman, chief executive of ChatGPT-maker OpenAI, and his biggest backer — Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella — will speak at the event later this week as part of a program that includes a debate Tuesday on “Generative AI: Steam Engine of the Fourth Industrial Revolution?”

As AI continues to be adapted by more workers and businesses, it’s expected to both help and hurt the human workforce, Georgieva noted in her blog.

Echoing previous warnings from other experts, Georgieva said the effects were expected to be felt more deeply in advanced economies than emerging markets, partly because white-collar workers are seen to be more at risk than manual laborers.

In more developed economies, for example, as much as 60% of jobs could be impacted by AI. Approximately half of those may benefit from how AI promotes higher productivity, she said.

“For the other half, AI applications may execute key tasks currently performed by humans, which could lower labor demand, leading to lower wages and reduced hiring,” wrote Georgieva, citing the IMF’s analysis.

“In the most extreme cases, some of these jobs may disappear.”

In emerging markets and lower income nations, 40% and 26% of jobs are expected to be affected by AI, respectively. Emerging markets refer to places such as India and Brazil with sustained economic growth, while low-income countries refer to developing economies with per capita income falling within a certain level such as Burundi and Sierra Leone.

“Many of these countries don’t have the infrastructure or skilled workforces to harness the benefits of AI, raising the risk that over time the technology could worsen inequality,” noted Georgieva.

She warned that the use of AI could increase chances of social unrest, particularly if younger, less experienced workers seized on the technology as a way to help boost their output while more senior workers struggle to keep up.

AI became a hot topic at the WEF in Davos last year as ChatGPT took the world by storm. The chatbot sensation, which is powered by generative AI, sparked conversations on how it could change the way people work around the world due to its ability to write essays, speeches, poems and more.

Since then, upgrades to the technology have expanded the use of AI chatbots and systems, making them more mainstream and spurring massive investment.

Some tech firms have already directly pointed to AI as a reason they are rethinking staffing levels.

While workplaces may shift, widespread adoption of AI could ultimately increase labor productivity and boost global GDP by 7% annually over a 10-year period, according to a March 2023 estimate by Goldman Sachs economists.

Georgieva, in her blog post, also cited opportunities to boost output and incomes around the world with the use of AI.

“AI will transform the global economy,” she wrote. “Let’s make sure it benefits humanity.”

Amen!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis suspended his Republican presidential campaign, ending a campaign that ultimately failed to challenge Donald Trump.

The decision leaves Trump and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley as the last major candidates remaining in the race ahead of Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary. This is the scenario Trump’s foes in the GOP have long sought, raising the stakes for this week’s contest as the party’s last chance to stop the former president who has so far dominated the race.

But as some Trump critics cheered, DeSantis nodded toward Trump’s primary dominance — and attacked Haley — in an exit video he posted on social media.  As reported by The Associated Press.

“It’s clear to me that a majority of Republican primary voters want to give Donald Trump another chance,” DeSantis said in the straight-to-camera video, delivered in a cheerful tone.

He continued: “I signed a pledge to support the Republican nominee and I will honor that pledge. He has my endorsement because we can’t go back to the old Republican guard of yesteryear, a repackaged form of warmed-over corporatism that Nikki Haley represents.”Haley spoke at a campaigning stop in Seabrook, New Hampshire, just as DeSantis announced his decision.

“He ran a great race, he’s been a good governor, and we wish him well,” she told a room packed with supporters and media. “Having said that, it’s now one fella and one lady left.“

DeSantis’ decision, while perhaps not surprising given his 30-point blowout loss last week in Iowa, marks the end of an extraordinary decline for a high-profile governor once thought to be a legitimate threat to Trump’s supremacy in the Republican Party. After months of contentious exchanges, Trump struck a more conciliatory tone late Sunday during a rally in Rochester, New Hampshire, calling DeSantis a “really terrific person.”

His record wasn’t enough to overcome Trump

DeSantis entered the 2024 presidential contest with major advantages in his quest to take on Trump, and early primary polls suggested DeSantis was in a strong position to do just that. He and his allies amassed a political fortune well in excess of $130 million, and he boasted a significant legislative record on issues important to many conservatives, like abortion and the teaching of race and gender issues in schools.

Such advantages did not survive the reality of presidential politics in 2024. From a high-profile announcement that was plagued by technical glitches to constant upheavals to his staff and campaign strategy, DeSantis struggled to find his footing in the primary. He lost the Iowa caucuses — which he had vowed to win — by 30 percentage points to Trump.

His departure was days in the making

DeSantis’ allies said that private discussions began shortly after Iowa to decide how to bow out of the race gracefully.

The Florida governor notified top donors and supporters of his decision through a series of phone conversations and text messages between senior campaign officials to top donors and supporters on Sunday afternoon, according to two people who received such communications. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to disclose the private conversations.

DeSantis had returned to Florida by then after a roller-coaster weekend that included stops in South Carolina ahead of an event in New Hampshire Sunday evening that was ultimately canceled. The campaign also canceled a series of national television appearances earlier in the day, blaming the cancelation on a miscommunication with DeSantis’ super PAC.

DeSantis was physically worn after spending weeks on the campaign with little, if any, time off, even as he stormed across frigid Iowa and New Hampshire, often without a winter coat.

A bitter rivalry comes to a meek end

He ultimately decided that he needed to endorse Trump given his popularity in the party despite the deeply personal feud between them.

“While I’ve had disagreements with Donald Trump, such as on the coronavirus pandemic and his elevation of Anthony Fauci, Trump is superior to the current incumbent, Joe Biden. That is clear,” said DeSantis, who is in his second and final term as Florida’s governor, which ends in January 2027.

The endorsement was a stunning tail-between-his-legs moment for DeSantis, whom Trump has mercilessly and relentlessly taunted in deeply personal terms for the better part of a year now.

For Trump, whose team includes many former DeSantis staffers, the attacks have often felt more like sport than political strategy. Trump and his aides have blasted the governor as disloyal for running in the first place, mocked his eating habits and his personality, and accused him of wearing high heels to boost his height.

DeSantis’ team joined Trump in attacking Haley as news of his departure rippled across the political landscape. Some doubt Haley, who was seen as splitting Republican votes and preventing a head-to-head matchup between Trump, would benefit from DeSantis’ decision.

“She will not be the nominee,” key DeSantis supporter Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, told AP. “She will not be the president of the United States.”

DeSantis was a poor candidate who did not click with voters nationally.

Tuesday will be a big test for Haley.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

A new report argues that America’s recent inflation was were driven by companies that kept their prices high even as costs have come down in recent months, in order to increase their profit margins.

The Groundwork Collaborative’s report, first reported by The Guardian, says that corporate profits are behind 53% of inflation over the second and third quarters of 2023.

At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the report’s authors noted, “virtually every company in every industry faced rising costs to make products and stock shelves.” The Ukraine war also worsened energy costs and hit supply chains.

But as these production strains have eased, the report said, companies across the economy have opted against lowering prices for consumers.

“What we saw over and over again, listening to the earnings calls and when we looked at the macroeconomic data, is that companies were passing along their higher prices and they were going for more,” Lindsay Owens, executive director of the Groundwork Collaborative, told MSNBC’s Ari Melber. She said companies are taking advantage of customers who are “expecting to pay a little more” in the current economy.

“I think this is profiteering,” Owens said.

The paper’s authors stated that scores of corporate executives have even “bragged” about their windfalls on quarterly earnings calls.

The report gives one particularly alarming example in the cost of diapers. The industry is “highly concentrated,” it said, noting how Procter & Gamble Co. and Kimberly-Clark Corp. control some 70% of the U.S. market.

Diaper prices have increased 30% from 2019, from an average of $16.50 to almost $22, in large part due to wholesale wood pulp costs, according to the paper’s authors. But wood pulp has come down from its 2021 and 2022 highs, while diaper prices have not, they said.

Inflation, which has squeezed households across the country, is a major issue for candidates ahead of the 2024 presidential election. President Joe Biden has repeatedly laid blame on corporations, blasting their CEOs for “price gouging.”

The Groundwork Collective’s report adds support to progressives’ argument that corporate greed is actually what is hurting Americans — a phenomenon dubbed “greedflation.”

That idea, however, is hotly debated. Last fall, a Federal Reserve economist released a report arguing that corporate profits were not so abnormally high when considering factors like government support for small businesses.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

A few days away from this coming Tuesday’s  critical New Hampshire primary, Nikki Haley is intensifying her criticism of former President Donald Trump and drawing a contrast between their approaches to governing.

Haley is characterizing the nomination contest as a two-person race, and she and her campaign are focused on targeting Trump.  As reported by CBS News.

“Trump says things. Americans aren’t stupid to just believe what he says,” Haley told reporters Thursday during a campaign stop in Hollis, New Hampshire. “The reality is — who lost the House for us? Who lost the Senate? Who lost The White House? Donald Trump, Donald Trump, Donald Trump.”

These direct attacks on Trump deviate from Haley’s usual dismissiveness of the former president and have emerged as Haley attempts to close the gap with Trump in New Hampshire.

During campaign stops throughout the Granite State, she’s been urging voters to move past “the political chaos” that follows Trump and consider her as the alternative to his “drama.”

“My style is different (from Trump’s). No vendettas, no trauma, no vengeance. It’s about results,” Haley said in Hollis.

For his part, Trump is swinging harder at Haley, mocking her birth name on Truth Social, referring to her as “Nimbra” and saying “she doesn’t have what it takes.” Haley, born “Nimarata Nikki Randhawa” in South Carolina, goes by her middle name.

At a campaign stop in Amherst on Friday, Haley brushed off Trump’s slur and assured voters the name-calling is just evidence of Trump’s fear.

“I’ll let people decide what he means by his attacks,” Haley said. “What we know is, look, he’s clearly insecure. If he goes and does his temper tantrum, if he’s going and spending millions of dollars on TV, he’s insecure. He knows that something’s wrong. I don’t sit there and worry about whether it’s personal or what he means by the end of the day,” Haley said.

About time she goes after Trump.  I hope it is not too late!

Tony

Rie Kudan.      ZUMAPRESS.com

Dear Commons Community,

After Japanese author Rie Kudan won one of the country’s most prestigious literary awards, she admitted she’d had help from an unusual source — ChatGPT.  As reported b y CNN.

“I plan to continue to profit from the use of AI in the writing of my novels, while letting my creativity express itself to the fullest,” said the 33-year-old, who was awarded the Akutagawa Prize for the best work of fiction by a promising new writer on Wednesday.

The author then confirmed at a press conference that around 5% of her book “The Tokyo Tower of Sympathy” — which was lauded by committee members as “practically flawless” — was word-for-word generated by AI.

The novel centers around the dilemmas of an architect tasked with building a comfortable high-rise prison in Tokyo where law breakers are rehabilitated, and features AI as a theme.

Kudan said that, in her own life, she would consult ChatGPT about problems she felt she couldn’t tell anyone. “When the AI did not say what I expected,” she said, “I sometimes reflected my feelings in the lines of the main character.”

The author is not the first artist to generate controversy by using artificial intelligence, at a time where many creatives feel their livelihoods are threatened by the technology.

Last year, Berlin-based photographer Boris Eldagsen withdrew from the Sony World Photography Awards after revealing his winning entry in the creative photo category was created using the technology.

Meanwhile, authors like George R. R. Martin, Jodi Picoult and John Grisham joined a class action lawsuit against OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, last year, saying it used copyrighted work while training its systems to create more human-like responses.

And more than 10,000 authors, including James Patterson, Roxane Gay and Margaret Atwood, signed an open letter calling on AI industry leaders to obtain consent from authors when using their work to train large language models — and to compensate them fairly when they do.

Writer and prize committee member Keiichiro Hirano took to X, the social media company formerly known as Twitter, to say the selection committee did not see Kudan’s use of AI as a problem.

“It seems that the story that Rie Kudan’s award-winning work was written using generative AI is misunderstood… If you read it, you will see that the generative AI was mentioned in the work,” he wrote. “There will be problems with that kind of usage in the future, but that is not the case with ‘Tokyo Sympathy Tower.’”

Congratulations to Rie!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Winter this year has started off with particularly cold temperature especially across the Midwest..  In Chicago, a cold weather phenomenon known as frost quakes, which make loud booming sounds and unleash small earthquake-like tremors, were felt during this week’s bout of below-zero temperatures.

Illinois state climatologist Trent Ford said there was no formal reporting system for frost quakes, which occur after a sudden freezing of the ground, but he had seen and heard reports of the phenomenon on social media. He’s also experienced some frost quakes, officially known as cryoseism, in the past.  As reported by CNN.

“It sort of sounds like somebody is either snapping a very large branch off a tree or maybe popping very large bubble wrap. It’s not quite gunfire, but it’s sort of like that, and it can be that loud,” Ford said.

“The shaking is less common,” he added. “Those can be like small earthquakes, not nearly to the extent of where pictures fall off the wall.”

Frost quakes can be unsettling, especially if people aren’t aware of them, but they don’t pose any real danger, Ford added. In extreme cases, they can cause damage to roads or building foundations, but that’s rare.

Where and how frost quakes occur

The phenomenon isn’t unique to the US Midwest; frost quakes have also been reported in New England, Canada and parts of Scandinavia. They can happen in rural or urban areas.

Frost quakes typically occur under a certain set of winter conditions, Ford said — after a wet, rainy period and when there’s little snow, which has an insulating effect, on the ground. How common the quakes are is unclear since there isn’t much research on them yet.

“What we need is for the soil to be nearly saturated with water so that there’s very little airspace to fill,” he said. “And then you need a rapid freeze.”

Once the soil is frozen, it acts like a different material. It becomes more solid, not shrinking and swelling as it normally would.

“That water in the soil freezes and expands … within the soil and essentially cracks or fractures the (frozen) soil almost like a rock. So it’s that fracturing that makes (the) popping and booming sound.”

Frost quakes caught the attention of Andrew Leung, a Climate Lab researcher at the University of Toronto Scarborough, when he heard what sounded like the noise of falling trees after an ice storm in December 2013. He went online to tweet about it and saw that others in southern Ontario had experienced something similar.

“I was surprised that many others around Toronto reported similar sounds being heard,” Leung said. “I felt that fallen trees might not be the best explanation for such noise.”

Leung went on to investigate the phenomenon as part of his doctorate and published a paper on frost quakes in the journal Citizen Empowered Mapping in 2017.

Using social media posts and climate data analysis, he mapped frost quakes in Ontario and neighboring regions in 2013 and 2014. Leung identified two frost quake clusters and the first known frost quakes in three Canadian provinces and seven US states, according to his thesis.

“Since temperature typically drops at night, frost quakes are most frequently reported at night or overnight, sometimes being mistaken as a burglar breaking into the house,” he said.

While networks have been set up to study and detect earthquakes, frost quakes are too localized and infrequent to monitor systematically, making social media reports particularly valuable in this instance, he said.

In northern Finland, a string of relatively strong frost quakes in the city of Oulu generated concern after the seismic phenomenon damaged a house in 2016 and ruptured roads that year and again in 2021.

During the winter of 2022 and 2023, a team of Finnish researchers installed two networks of seismic instruments, one in Oulu, and one farther north in Sodankylä, to investigate further. The scientists shared preliminary data from their study late last year.

They were able to identify the frost quakes in the seismic data they collected because the wave form is distinctive, said Kari Moisio, a senior researcher at the University of Oulu and one of the authors of the study, which he said would publish in a scientific journal soon. The team also tracked soil temperature over the course of the study.

The researchers detected 11 frost quakes in the site near Oulu and 34 farther north near Sodankylä over the study period.

“At least to our understanding, this was the first time we could actually look at these events so precisely,” he said.

Frost quakes are likely to occur when the temperature rapidly drops to more than minus 20 degrees Celsius (minus 4 degrees Fahrenheit) at a rate of about 1 degree per hour, the researchers found.

Roads and other areas cleared of snow were thought to be particularly vulnerable to frost quakes. However, the latest study suggested that some frost quakes occurred in wetlands and swamps, where water accumulates. These areas typically had snow cover, Moisio said, thus the finding surprised the research team.

To understand whether frost quakes are increasing, the team plans to monitor the same areas this winter and next. The researchers also hope to map how common frost quakes are in other areas of the country.

Moisio said that wetter winters and less stable winter temperatures due to climate change could lead to frost quakes becoming more frequent.

“There will be not as much snow in the future in Scandinavia at these latitudes where we are,” he said.

Instead, he said, it will rain more.

“This, I think, might create even more dramatic events … because this will increase water in the subsurface.”

Leung agreed. “We have no evidence that they are becoming more frequent,” he said. “However, the overall decreasing snow depth trend due to climate change in theory can make the ground more susceptible to frost quakes because snow is no longer insulating the ground.”

I was not aware of frost quakes!

Tony

Congressional Leaders Hakeem Jeffries and Mike Johnson

Dear Commons Community,

Congress sent President Joe Biden a short-term spending bill yesterday that would avert a looming partial government shutdown and fund federal agencies into March.

The House approved the measure by a vote of 314-108, with opposition coming mostly from the more conservative members of the Republican conference. Shortly before the vote, the House Freedom Caucus announced it “strongly opposes” the measure because it would facilitate more spending than they support.

In yesterday afternoon’s vote, 107 House Republicans voted to keep federal agencies funded and 106 voted against the measure. 207 Democrats voted for the resolution and only two voted against.To almost lose the majority of his conference underscores the challenges facing the new speaker and signals the difficulty he will have in striking a deal that will not alienate many of his GOP colleagues. They are clamoring for deeper non-defense spending cuts and myriad conservative policy mandates.  The action came a few hours after the Senate had voted overwhelmingly to pass the bill by a vote of 77-18.

The measure extends current spending levels and buys time for the two chambers to work out their differences over full-year spending bills for the fiscal year that began in October.

The temporary measure will run to March 1 for some federal agencies. Their funds were set to run out Friday. It extends the remainder of government operations to March 8.  As reported by The Associated Press.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the president would sign the resolution and urged Republicans to quit wasting time on partisan spending bills.

“House Republicans must finally do their job and work across the aisle to pass full-year funding bills that deliver for the American people and address urgent domestic and national security priorities by passing the President’s supplemental request,” Jean-Pierre said.

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has been under pressure from his right flank to scrap a $1.66 trillion budget price tag he reached with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer earlier this month for the spending bills. Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, said the continuing resolution passed yesterday will facilitate that agreement, and urged colleagues to vote against it.

“It’s Groundhog Day in the House chamber all the time, every day, yet again spending money we don’t have,” Roy said.

Johnson has insisted he will stick with the deal, and centrists in the party have stood behind him. They say that changing course now would be going back on his word and would weaken the speaker in future negotiations.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, said Americans expect Congress to govern and work in a bipartisan fashion.

“Some of my colleagues would see that this government would shut down and don’t care how hurtful that would be,” DeLauro said.

House Republicans have fought bitterly over budget levels and policy since taking the majority at the start of 2023. Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., was ousted by his caucus in October after striking an agreement with Democrats to extend current spending the first time. Johnson has also come under criticism as he has wrestled with how to appease his members and avoid a government shutdown in an election year.

“We just needed a little more time on the calendar to do it and now that’s where we are,” Johnson said Tuesday about the decision to extend federal funding yet again. “We’re not going to get everything we want.”

Most House Republicans have so far refrained from saying that Johnson’s job is in danger. But a revolt of even a handful of Republicans could endanger his position in the narrowly divided House.

Virginia Rep. Bob Good, one of eight Republicans who voted to oust McCarthy, has been pushing Johnson to reconsider the deal with Schumer.

“If your opponent in negotiation knows that you fear the consequence of not reaching an agreement more than they fear the consequence of not reaching an agreement, you will lose every time,” Good said this week.

Other Republicans acknowledge Johnson is in a tough spot. “The speaker was dealt with the hand he was dealt,” said Kentucky Rep. Andy Barr, noting the constraints imposed by the party’s slim majority.

The short-term measure comes amid negotiations on a separate spending package that would provide wartime dollars to Ukraine and Israel and strengthen security at the U.S.-Mexico border. Johnson is also under pressure from the right not to accept a deal that is any weaker than a House-passed border measure that has no Democratic support.

Johnson, Hakeem Jeffries and other congressional leaders and committee heads visited the White House on Wednesday to discuss that spending legislation. Johnson used the meeting to push for stronger border security measures while Biden and Democrats detailed Ukraine’s security needs as it continues to fight Russia.

Biden has requested a $110 billion package for the wartime spending and border security.

Bipartisanship YES!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Ronda Stryker and William Johnston are giving $100 million to Atlanta’s Spelman College, which the women’s school says is the largest-ever single donation to a historically Black college or university.

The donation was announced yesterday by the donors. Ronda Stryker is the billionaire granddaughter of the founder of medical device maker Stryker Corp. and William Johnson is the chairman of the money management firm Greenleaf Trust.

Spelman College in announcing the gift said that it would use $75 million to endow scholarships. The rest of the money will be used for other purposes, including developing an academic focus on public policy and democracy and improving student housing.

“It’s a transformational gift to any institution, period,” Spelman trustee Lovette Russell said.

HBCUs have small endowments compared with other colleges, but have seen an increase in donations since the racial justice protests spurred by the killing of George Floyd in Minnesota. Spelman, which has an enrollment of 2,144 students, has been relatively well-funded though, reporting an endowment of $571 million in 2021. It’s one of only two historically Black women’s colleges and part of the Atlanta University Center, a consortium of four historically Black schools.

“I think it says that it’s worth investing in HBCUs more broadly, schools that have been far too underinvested in,” Spelman College President Helene Gayle told CBS News. The college announced the donation in its chapel on a CBS broadcast.

Stryker has been a Spelman trustee since 1997. She and Johnston gave Spelman $30 million in 2018. They also gave $100 million in 2011 to create the Homer Stryker medical school at Western Michigan University.

The Spelman donation comes a week after the United Negro College Fund announced a donation of $100 million from the Lilly Endowment Inc. That gift will go toward a pooled endowment for the 37 historically Black colleges and universities that form UNCF’s membership, including Spelman, with the goal of boosting the schools’ long-term financial stability. The fund is trying to raise $370 million for a shared endowment.

Other big donations to HBCUs in recent years include the $560 million MacKenzie Scott, the ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, gave in 2020 to 22 Black colleges, the UNCF and the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, another fundraising arm. Netflix founder Reed Hastings and his wife, Patty Quillin, split $120 million among the United Negro College Fund, Spelman and Morehouse College. Former New York mayor and entrepreneur Michael Bloomberg pledged $100 million for student aid at the four historically Black medical schools.

Congratulations to Spelman and thanks to the donors!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Scientists yesterday announced the discovery of the oldest black hole (Sagittarius* (SGR*) ) ever seen, a 13-billion-year-old object that’s actually “eating” its host galaxy to death.

Astronomers made the discovery with the James Webb Space Telescope.

The oldest black hole is surprisingly massive – a few million times the mass of our sun. The fact that it exists so early in the universe “challenges our assumptions about how black holes form and grow,” according to a statement from the University of Cambridge in the U.K.

News of the discovery was published Wednesday in the study “A small and vigorous black hole in the early Universe” in the peer-reviewed journal Nature.   As reported by U.S.A. Today and NPR.

“It’s very early in the universe to see a black hole this massive, so we’ve got to consider other ways they might form,” said lead author Roberto Maiolino, from Cambridge’s Cavendish Laboratory and Kavli Institute for Cosmology. “Very early galaxies were extremely gas-rich, so they would have been like a buffet for black holes.”

Astronomers believe that the supermassive black holes found at the center of galaxies like the Milky Way grew to their current size over billions of years, according to the University of Cambridge. But the size of this newly-discovered black hole suggests that they might form in different ways: they might be ‘born big’ or they can eat matter at a rate that’s five times higher

“This black hole is essentially eating the [equivalent of] an entire sun every five years,” Maiolino told NPR. “It’s actually much higher than we thought could be feasible for these black holes.”

An international team of astronomers unveiled in 2022 the first image of a supermassive black hole, a cosmic body known as Sagittarius A* at the center of our own Milky Way galaxy.

Launched in 2021, the James Webb Space Telescope is the biggest and most powerful astronomical observatory ever sent into space.

In Webb’s two years, the telescope has offered stunning views of our solar system’s planets, galaxies, stars and other parts of the universe never glimpsed before.

“It’s a new era: the giant leap in sensitivity, especially in the infrared, is like upgrading from Galileo’s telescope to a modern telescope overnight,” Maiolino said. “Before Webb came online, I thought maybe the universe isn’t so interesting when you go beyond what we could see with the Hubble Space Telescope. But that hasn’t been the case at all: the universe has been quite generous in what it’s showing us, and this is just the beginning.”

What a great time for astronomical research!

Tony