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Cyclone size of Texas discovered on Jupiter by NASA’s Juno mission – CNN International

Posted on December 14, 2019 by Danzig

In this image captured by Juno, six cyclones remain stable at Jupiter's south pole. A small cyclone, seen at the bottom right in yellow, has recently joined the party.

An artist's impression of a collision between a young Jupiter and a massive, still-forming protoplanet in the early solar system.

These dramatic swirls on Jupiter are atmospheric features. Clouds swirl around a circular feature in a jet stream region.

Is that a dolphin on Jupiter? No, but it definitely looks like one. It's actually a cloud that looks like it's swimming through cloud bands along the South Temperate Belt.

This composite image, derived from data collected by the Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper (JIRAM) instrument aboard NASA's Juno mission to Jupiter, shows the central cyclone at the planet's north pole and the eight cyclones that encircle it.

This striking image of Jupiter was captured by NASA's Juno spacecraft as it performed its eighth flyby of the gas giant.

Algorithmic-based scaling and coloring reveal a vivid look at the Great Red Spot in July 2017.

Jupiter's Great Red Spot is a storm with a 10,000-mile-wide cluster of clouds in July 2017.

Color enhancements offer a detailed look into the Great Red Spot.

NASA configured this comparison of its own image of Earth with an image of Jupiter taken by astronomer Christopher Go.

This artist's concept shows the pole-to-pole orbits of the NASA's Juno spacecraft at Jupiter.

This image shows Jupiter's south pole, as seen by NASA's Juno spacecraft from an altitude of 32,000 miles (52,000 kilometers). The oval features are cyclones, up to 600 miles (1,000 kilometers) in diameter. Multiple images taken with the JunoCam instrument on three orbits were combined to show all areas in daylight, enhanced color and stereographic projection.

An even closer view of Jupiter's clouds obtained by NASA's Juno spacecraft.

Jupiter's north polar region comes into view as NASA's Juno spacecraft approaches the giant planet. This view of Jupiter was taken when Juno was 437,000 miles (703,000 kilometers) away during its first of 36 orbital flybys of the planet.

This infrared image gives an unprecedented view of the southern aurora of Jupiter, as captured by NASA's Juno spacecraft on August 27, 2016. Juno's unique polar orbit provides the first opportunity to observe this region of the gas-giant planet in detail.

NASA's Juno spacecraft has sent back its first photo of Jupiter, left, since entering into orbit around the planet. The photo is made from some of the first images taken by JunoCam and shows three of the massive planet's four largest moons: from left, Io, Europa and Ganymede.

An illustration depicts NASA's Juno spacecraft entering Jupiter's orbit. Juno will study Jupiter from a polar orbit, coming about 3,000 miles (5,000 kilometers) from the cloud tops of the gas giant.

This was the final view of Jupiter taken by Juno before the on-board instruments were powered down to prepare for orbit. The image was taken June 29, 2016, while the spacecraft was 3.3 million miles (5.3 million kilometers) from Jupiter.

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope captured images of Jupiter's auroras on the poles of the gas giant. The observations were supported by measurements taken by Juno.

This artist rendering shows Juno orbiting Jupiter.

Jupiter and the gaseous planet's four largest moons -- Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto -- are seen in a photo taken by Juno on June 21, 2016. The spacecraft was 6.8 million miles (10.9 million kilometers) from the planet.

Juno made a flyby of Earth in October 2014. This trio of images was taken by the spacecraft's JunoCam.

Three Lego figurines are flying aboard the Juno spacecraft. They represent the Roman god Jupiter; his wife, Juno; and Galileo Galilei, the scientist who discovered Jupiter's four largest moons on January 7, 1610.

Jupiter was 445 million miles (716 million kilometers) from Earth when Juno was launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on August 5, 2011. But the probe traveled a total distance of 1,740 million miles (2,800 million kilometers) to reach Jupiter, making a flyby of Earth to help pick up speed.

Technicians use a crane to lower Juno onto a stand where the spacecraft was loaded with fuel for its mission.

Technicians test the three massive solar arrays that power the Juno spacecraft. In this photo taken February 2, 2011, each solar array is unfurled at a Lockheed Martin Space Systems facility in Denver.

The Return to Venus and What It Means for Earth – Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Posted on December 14, 2019 by Danzig

Sue Smrekar really wants to go back to Venus. In her office at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, the planetary scientist displays a 30-year-old image of Venus' surface taken by the Magellan spacecraft, a reminder of how much time has passed since an American mission orbited the planet. The image reveals a hellish landscape: a young surface with more volcanoes than any other body in the solar system, gigantic rifts, towering mountain belts and temperatures hot enough to melt lead.

Now superheated by greenhouse gases, Venus' climate was once more similar to Earth's, with a shallow ocean's worth of water. It may even have subduction zones like Earth, areas where the planet's crust sinks back into rock closer to the core of the planet.

"Venus is like the control case for Earth," said Smrekar. "We believe they started out with the same composition, the same water and carbon dioxide. And they've gone down two completely different paths. So why? What are the key forces responsible for the differences?"

By studying this mysterious planet, scientists could learn a great deal more about exoplanets, as well as the past, present, and possible future of our own. This video unveils this world and calls on current and future scientists to explore its many features.

Smrekar works with the Venus Exploration Analysis Group (VEXAG), a coalition of scientists and engineers investigating ways to revisit the planet that Magellan mapped so many decades ago. Though their approaches vary, the group agrees that Venus could tell us something vitally important about our planet: what happened to the superheated climate of our planetary twin, and what does it mean for life on Earth?

Orbiters

Venus isn't the closest planet to the Sun, but it is the hottest in our solar system. Between the intense heat (900 degrees Fahrenheit heat, or 480 degrees Celsius), the corrosive sulfuric clouds and a crushing atmosphere that is 90 times denser than Earth's, landing a spacecraft there is incredibly challenging. Of the nine Soviet probes that achieved the feat, none lasted longer than 127 minutes.

From the relative safety of space, an orbiter could use radar and near-infrared spectroscopy to peer beneath the cloud layers, measure landscape changes over time, and determine whether or not the ground moves. It could look for indicators of past water as well as volcanic activity and other forces that may have shaped the planet.

Smrekar, who is working on an orbiter proposal called VERITAS, doesn't think that Venus has plate tectonics the way Earth does. But she sees possible hints of subduction - what happens when two plates converge and one slides beneath the other. More data would help.

"We know very little about the composition of the surface of Venus," she said. "We think that there are continents, like on Earth, which could have formed via past subduction. But we don't have the information to really say that."

The answers wouldn't only deepen our understanding of why Venus and Earth are now so different; they could narrow down the conditions scientists would need in order to find an Earth-like planet elsewhere.

Hot Air Balloons

Orbiters aren't the only means of studying Venus from above. JPL engineers Attila Komjathy and Siddharth Krishnamoorthy imagine an armada of hot air balloons that ride the gale-force winds in the upper levels of the Venusian atmosphere, where the temperatures are close to Earth's.

"There is no commissioned mission for a balloon at Venus yet, but balloons are a great way to explore Venus because the atmosphere is so thick and the surface is so harsh," said Krishnamoorthy. "The balloon is like the sweet spot, where you're close enough to get a lot of important stuff out but you're also in a much more benign environment where your sensors can actually last long enough to give you something meaningful."

The team would equip the balloons with seismometers sensitive enough to detect quakes on the planet below. On Earth, when the ground shakes, that motion ripples into the atmosphere as waves of infrasound (the opposite of ultrasound). Krishnamoorthy and Komjathy have demonstrated the technique is feasible using silver hot-air balloons, which measured weak signals above areas on Earth with tremors. And that's not even with the benefit of Venus's dense atmosphere, where the experiment would likely return even stronger results.

"If the ground moves a little bit, it shakes the air a lot more on Venus than it does on Earth," Krishnamoorthy explained.

To get that seismic data, though, a balloon mission would need to contend with Venus' hurricane-force winds. The ideal balloon, as determined by Venus Exploration Analysis Group, could control its movements in at least one direction. Krishnamoorthy and Komjathy's team hasn't gotten that far, but they have proposed a middle ground: having the balloons essentially ride the wind around the planet at a steady speed, sending their results back to an orbiter. It's a start.

Landing Probes

Among the many challenges facing a Venus lander are those Sun-blocking clouds: Without sunlight, solar-power would be severely limited. But the planet is too hot for other power sources to survive. "Temperature-wise, it's like being in your kitchen oven set to self-cleaning mode," said JPL engineer Jeff Hall, who has worked on balloon and lander prototypes for Venus. "There really is nowhere else like that surface environment in the solar system."

By default, a landing mission's lifespan will be cut short by the spacecraft's electronics starting to fail after a few hours. Hall says the amount of power required to run a refrigerator capable of protecting a spacecraft would require more batteries than a lander could carry.

"There is no hope of refrigerating a lander to keep it cool," he added. "All you can do is slow down the rate at which is destroys itself."

NASA is interested in developing "hot technology" that can survive days, or even weeks, in extreme environments. Although Hall's Venus lander concept didn't make it to the next stage of the approval process, it did lead to his current Venus-related work: a heat-resistant drilling and sampling system that could take Venusian soil samples for analysis. Hall works with Honeybee Robotics to develop the next-generation electric motors that power drills in extreme conditions, while JPL engineer Joe Melko designs the pneumatic sampling system.

Together, they work with the prototypes in JPL's steel-walled Large Venus Test Chamber, which mimics the conditions of the planet right down to an atmosphere that's a suffocating 100% carbon dioxide. With each successful test, the teams bring humanity one step closer to pushing the boundaries of exploration on this most inhospitable planet.

For more information about Venus, visit:

https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/venus

News Media Contact

Arielle SamuelsonJet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.818-354-0307arielle.a.samuelson@jpl.nasa.gov

2019-246

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Fossils on Mars? If They Exist, NASA’s Mars 2020 Rover has a Shot at Finding Them – Discover Magazine

Posted on December 14, 2019 by Danzig

Scientists have found another reason to look forward to NASA's next Mars rover mission. A spacecraft orbiting Mars recently spotted clear signs that the landing site for NASAs Mars 2020 rover Jezero Crater is home to hydrated silica, a mineral thats particularly good at preserving signs of life. That could make the landing site a good place to preserve fossils on Mars.

The rover mission will help researchers figure out how the minerals formed and start probing them for signs of life. And a team of scientists is already proposing several ideas for how the minerals came to be in Jezero Crater. The researchers describe their findings in a study published in November in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

Silica is a crystalline structure made of silicon and oxygen that can be found in quartz, glass and sand. Hydrated silica holds water within its crystal structure. On Earth, hydrated silica can form in a variety of environments, like in volcanic glass and on the ocean floor.

Read More: Scientists Gear Up to Look For Fossils on Mars

Hydrated silica is one of the hardest known materials other than diamond and resists weathering from wind and water. That means its very good at preserving softer materials that find their way inside.

The oldest evidence definitive evidence of microfossils that we have on Earth are usually found in silica, said Jesse Tarnas, a planetary scientist at Brown University and one of the authors of the paper.

The researchers found evidence for hydrated silica in Jezero Crater when data from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft matched up with similar measurements taken of hydrated silica in the lab. Once the rover lands in 2021, scientists will be able to study the minerals up close and figure out how they formed and whether they might contain signs of past life.

Read More: Ancient Rivers Raged on Mars, Upsetting Geologic Timeline

Jezero Crater was once home to rivers that carved a delta into the planets surface. Its possible that the hydrated silica formed in these deltas, Tarnas said. Other possibilities are that it formed in volcanoes or rocks upriver, and that wind or water carried it into the delta. Some of these scenarios are more promising for preserving signs of life than others.

The Mars 2020 rover is scheduled to launch in July 2020 and land on Mars in February 2021. Once its there, the rover's instruments can carefully analyze the chemistry of the hydrated silica and surrounding rocks. These observations will let scientists figure out how the hydrated silica formed and if they contain complex organic molecules.

If the rovers on-site analysis looks promising, it can pack samples that a future Mars mission could try to bring back. Scientists would likely need to study the samples in person, Tarnas said, to confirm or deny whether they contain signs of life.

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Fossils on Mars? If They Exist, NASA's Mars 2020 Rover has a Shot at Finding Them - Discover Magazine

News | Celebrating 10 Years of the WISE Spacecraft – Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Posted on December 14, 2019 by Danzig

Just before sunrise on Dec. 14, 2009, a Delta-II rocket lifted off from California's Vandenberg Air Force Base and brought NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) to low-Earth orbit. Its mission: to study galaxies, stars, asteroids and comets by imaging the entire sky in infrared light.

WISE was placed in hibernation in February 2011 after completing its primary astrophysics mission, but in late 2013, the spacecraft was reactivated, renamed NEOWISE and assigned a second mission dedicated to identifying and characterizing the population of near-Earth objects while also providing information about the size and composition of more distant asteroids and comets.

Over the last decade, data from WISE and NEOWISE have been cited in more than 3,000 peer-reviewed publications and been used to study distant galaxies, cool stars, exploding white dwarfs, outgassing comets, near-Earth asteroids and everything in between.

To celebrate the 10th anniversary of the spacecraft's launch, the mission team has gathered their top 10 images and graphics based on WISE and NEOWISE data.

The Sky as Seen by WISE

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA

The fundamental objective of the WISE mission was to map the entire sky in infrared light with hundreds to hundreds of thousands of times greater sensitivity than previous surveys. WISE completed this objective in 2010. This image shows the entire sky as seen by WISE with its four infrared detectors (3.4- and 4.6-micron light is colored blue; 12-micron light is green; and 22-micron light is red), with the plane of our Milky Way galaxy running across the center.

Read more about this image here: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/WISE/multimedia/pia15481.html

Earth's Trojan Asteroid

Image credit: Paul Wiegert, University of Western Ontario - based on WISE/NEOWISE data

Trojan asteroids share an orbit with a planet, orbiting the Sun ahead of or behind the planet. While Trojan asteroids associated with Jupiter, Neptune and Mars are known, NEOWISE discovered the first (and so far only) Trojan asteroid in Earth's orbit, known as 2010 TK7. In this artist's conception, the asteroid is shown in gray and its orbit, which oscillates above and below Earth's every four centuries, is shown in green. Earth's orbit around the Sun is indicated by blue dots.

Read more about this image here: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/WISE/multimedia/gallery/13115-4x3.html

Heart and Soul

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA

Located about 6,000 light-years from Earth, the Heart (right) and Soul (left) nebulas compose a vast star-forming complex that makes up part of the Perseus spiral arm of our Milky Way. The Perseus arm lies farther from the center of the Milky Way than the Sun. The nebulas are marked by giant bubbles that were blown into surrounding dust by radiation and winds from stars less than a few million years old - youngsters in comparison to the Sun, which is nearly 5 billion years old.

Read more about this image here: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/WISE/multimedia/wiseimage20100524.html

The Great Galaxy in Andromeda

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA

At 2.5 million light-years away, the Andromeda galaxy is the closest spiral galaxy to our Milky Way; in fact, it will collide with ours billions of years from now. This WISE mosaic covers an area equivalent to more than 100 full Moons, or five degrees across on the sky. Blue highlights mature stars, while yellow and red show dust heated by massive newborn stars.

Read more about this image here: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/WISE/multimedia/pia12832-c.html

The Large Magellanic Cloud

Image credit: Thomas Jarrett - based on WISE/NEOWISE data

Larger view

Although the Andromeda galaxy is bigger, the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of our Milky Way, is closer: "only" 160,000 light-years from Earth. This makes it appear larger than Andromeda on the sky, and it is easy to spot in the all-sky image at about 4 o'clock, halfway out from the galactic center. The central blue bar is light from older stars. An oddly square outline encompasses the orange clouds outside this bar, which are regions of dust and gas illuminated by younger stars.

Millions of Giant Black Holes

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA Larger view

Peering more than 10 billion light-years into the distance, WISE has found tens of millions of actively feeding supermassive lack holes across the full sky. The orange circles highlight those that the telescope identified in a small patch of sky; the two zoomed-in images came from the Hubble Space Telescope. WISE easily sees these monsters because their powerful, accreting black holes warm the dust, causing it to glow in infrared light. The blue circles indicate black holes that were detected using visible-light imagers. In most, that light is blocked by dust.

Read more about this image here: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/WISE/multimedia/pia15481.html

The New Solar Neighborhood

Image credit: PSU/Cushing - based on WISE/NEOWISE data

WISE discoveries have redefined the solar neighborhood. The third- and fourth-closest systems to the Sun are brown dwarfs about 7 light-years away. Brown dwarfs form like stars but can't sustain the fusion that powers more massive stars. So they cool off with time and can be seen only in infrared light, which is invisible to the human eye. The WISE 0855-0714 system shown here is the coldest known - colder than ice. Very cold brown dwarfs appear only in the second-shortest wavelength band of WISE, as shown at bottom mapped to green.

Klotho and Lina

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA Larger view

Those aren't Klingon vessels. Appearing as strings of orange dots, the brightest sets of dots belong to asteroids Klotho and Lina. Both orbit out in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, while smaller, more distant asteroids can also be seen passing through the image.

Comet 65P/Gunn

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA

What looks like a narwhal is actually comet 65P/Gunn, which orbits the Sun every 6.8 years. A comet is a ball of dust and ice left over from the formation of the solar system. As it approaches the Sun and heats up, its surface releases gas and dust, which are then blown back by the solar wind into a long, spectacular tail. The "sword" ahead of the comet's nucleus is made of dust particles shed by 65P/Gunn on previous orbits around the Sun.

Read more about this image here: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/WISE/multimedia/gallery/13115-4x3.html

The Most Luminous Galaxy

Image credit: NRAO/AUI/NSF/S. Dagnello - based on WISE/NEOWISE data

The most luminous galaxy confirmed - discovered by WISE and known by its catalog number, WISE J224607.55-052634.9 - radiates with 350 trillion times the luminosity of the Sun. As illustrated in this artist's conception based on subsequent observations using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array in Chile, trails of dust are being pulled from three smaller galaxies into this blazing powerhouse. It appears to be cannibalizing its smaller neighbors, which is likely contributing to its superlative brightness. WISE discovered this galaxy as part of a rare population of objects that appear only in its longest wavelength bands.

Read more about this image here: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/details.php?id=PIA22358

For more information about NEOWISE, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov/neowise

http://neowise.ipac.caltech.edu/

For more information about WISE, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/wise

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/wise/

News Media Contact

DC AgleJet PropulsionLaboratory, Pasadena, Calif.818-393-9011agle@jpl.nasa.gov

Alana JohnsonNASA Headquarters, Washington202-672-4780alana.r.johnson@nasa.gov

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News | Celebrating 10 Years of the WISE Spacecraft - Jet Propulsion Laboratory

NOAA/NASA Panel Concurs that Solar Cycle 25 will Peak in July 2025 – ARRL

Posted on December 14, 2019 by Danzig

12/11/2019

The NOAA/NASA-co-chaired international Solar Cycle Prediction Panel has released its latest forecast for to forecast Solar Cycle 25. The panels consensus calls for a peak in July 2025 (8 months), with a smoothed sunspot number of 115. The panel agreed that Cycle 25 will be of average intensity and similar to Cycle 24. The panel additionally concurred that the solar minimum between Cycles 24 and 25 will occur in April 2020 (6 months). If the solar minimum prediction is correct, this would make Solar Cycle 24 the seventh longest on record at 11.4 years. In its preliminary forecast released last April, the scientists on the panel forecast that Solar Cycle 25 would likely be weak, much like the current Cycle 24.

Solar Cycle 25 may have a slow start, but is anticipated to peak with solar maximum occurring between 2023 and 2026, and a sunspot range of 95 to 130. This is well below the average number of sunspots, the panel said last spring, adding with high confidence that Cycle 25 should break the trend of weakening solar activity seen over the past four cycles. The panel said the expectation that Cycle 25 would be comparable in size to Cycle 24 suggests that the steady decline in solar cycle amplitude seen from Cycle 21 through Cycle 24 has ended and that there is no indication of an approaching Maunder-type minimum. Cycle 24 peaked in April 2014 with an average sunspot number of 82.

The Solar Cycle Prediction Panel forecasts the number of sunspots expected for solar maximum, along with the timing of the peak and minimum solar activity levels for the cycle. It is comprised of scientists representing NOAA, NASA, the International Space Environment Services, and other US and international scientists.

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NOAA/NASA Panel Concurs that Solar Cycle 25 will Peak in July 2025 - ARRL

NASA’s TESS Watched an Outburst from Comet 46P/Wirtanen – Universe Today

Posted on December 14, 2019 by Danzig

TESS, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, has imaged an outburst from the comet 46P/Wirtanen. It caught the outburst in what NASA is calling the clearest images yet of a comet outburst from start to finish. A comet outburst is a significant but temporary increase in the comets activity, outside of the normal sunlight-driven vaporization of ices that creates a comets coma and tail.

Astronomers arent certain what causes them, but a new study based on this observation is shedding some light on them.

TESS is not meant to study comets. Its job is to spot dips in starlight when an exoplanet passes, or transits, in front of a star. But because it has such a wide field of view, and because it watches one section of sky for over 27 days, it also captures other transient phenomena like this comet outburst.

The study outlining this comet outburst was published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters on November 22nd. The study is titled First Results fromTESSObservations of Comet 46P/Wirtanen. Tony Farnham, a research scientist at the University of Marylands Department of Astronomy is the lead author.

TESS spends nearly a month at a time imaging one portion of the sky. With no day or night breaks and no atmospheric interference, we have a very uniform, long-duration set of observations, Farnham said in a press release.

As comets orbit the Sun, they can pass through TESS field of view. Wirtanen was a high priority for us because of its close approach in late 2018, so we decided to use its appearance in the TESS images as a test case to see what we could get out of it. We did so and were very surprised!, said Farnham.

Comets are small bodies in the Solar System with significant ice content. They normally follow long elliptical orbits that take them close to the Sun. As they approach the Sun, the comet warms and some of the ice out-gasses, dragging dust along with it. This creates a coma and a tail that stretches away from the Sun.

A comet outburst is a distinct phenomenon separate from the normal out-gassing that creates the tail and coma. While out-gassing is an ongoing gradual process, an outburst is a more immediate effect. Theyre related to the conditions on the comets surface.

Astronomers know of a number of potential triggers for comet outbursts. Comets can contain pockets of volatile ices. If a heat wave penetrates into one of those pockets, the rapid heating could vaporize those ices, causing an outburst of gas and dust. There are also mechanical events where a cliff or other feature on the comets surface collapses, subjecting freshly-exposed ice to the heat from the Sun, causing an outburst. Both could work together, and there could be other causes.

To understand these outbursts, its especially important to capture images of a comet in the days leading up to the outburst itself. Those observations can help astronomers understand the thermal and physical characteristics of the comet.

Thanks to TESS, thats what happened in the case of 46P/Wirtanen.

even if we somehow had the opportunity to schedule these observations, we couldnt have done any better in terms of timing.

The outburst began on September 26th 2018, almost three months before the comets closest approach to the Sun. The initial brightening occurred in two phases: first there was a bright flash that lasted about an hour, and then there was a second 8-hour long phase of gradual brightening. The team behind this study thinks that the second phase was dust and gas from the initial phase spreading out and reflecting more sunlight. After the brightness peaked, the outburst faded over a period of about two weeks.

Thanks to TESSs observational capabilities, astronomers had access to composite images of the outburst at 30 minute intervals.

With 20 days worth of very frequent images, we were able to assess changes in brightness very easily. Thats what TESS was designed for, to perform its primary job as an exoplanet surveyor, Farnham said. We cant predict when comet outbursts will happen. But even if we somehow had the opportunity to schedule these observations, we couldnt have done any better in terms of timing. The outburst happened mere days after the observations started.

Those detailed observations allowed the team to estimate the amount of material ejected during the outburst. They think that Wirtanen lost about 1 million kg (2.2 million lbs) of material, and that the outburst created a crater about 20 meters (65 ft.) across. That estimate will likely become more accurate when they analyze the size of the dust particles in the tail.

This is not the first time that 46P/Wirtanen has been observed during an outburst. Its happened at least three other times since its discovery in 1948: in October 1991, September 2002, and May 2008. Since none of those outbursts were correlated with the comets orbital position, scientists think that the outbursts are not related to a persistently volatile region of the comet.

This makes Wirtanen different than outbursts seen on some other comets. Comet 29P/SchwassmannWachmann1 (SW1) seems to experience outbursts frequently. Half of those outbursts are periodic, which suggests that it has volatile ice hot-spots that outburst according to diurnal heating.

We think comets lose most of their mass through their dust trails. When the Earth runs into a comets dust trail, we getmeteor showers.

The team of astronomers also detected the comets trail for the first time. The trail is separate from the tail. While the tail is shaped by the solar wind and always points away from the Sun, the trail is always behind the comet, tracing its orbital path. The trail is also made of larger debris than the tail. The trail is where a comet loses most of its mass, and is responsible for the meteor showers seen from Earth.

The trail more closely follows the orbit of the comet, while the tail is offset from it, as it gets pushed around by the suns radiation pressure. Whats significant about the trail is that it contains the largest material, saidMichael Kelley, an associate research scientist in the UMD Department of Astronomy and a co-author of the research paper. Tail dust is very fine, a lot like smoke. But trail dust is much largermore like sand and pebbles. We think comets lose most of their mass through their dust trails. When the Earth runs into a comets dust trail, we getmeteor showers.

We also dont know what causes natural outbursts and thats ultimately what we want to find.

While this study is fascinating, its really just a beginning. Further analysis of this comet, and of other ones in TESSs field of view, should shed more light on comets, and on their outbursts. Observing more comets will also help to determine whether multi-stage brightening is rare or commonplace in comet outbursts.

We also dont know what causes natural outbursts and thats ultimately what we want to find, Farnham said. There are at least four other comets in the same area of the sky where TESS made these observations, with a total of about 50 comets expected in the first two years worth of TESS data. Theres a lot that can come of these data.

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NASA's TESS Watched an Outburst from Comet 46P/Wirtanen - Universe Today

ASML version of Intel roadmap shows 1.4nm CPUs arrive in 2029 – CPU – News – HEXUS

Posted on December 14, 2019 by Danzig

Intel semiconductor machinery partner ASML presented at the IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting earlier this week and raised eyebrows with an edited version of an Intel processor scaling roadmap. Intel originally showed off this roadmap back in September. However, ASML made it rather more interesting by clearing the fog and overlaying the nanometer node sizes alongside corresponding years, spanning 2019 through to 2029.

Above you can see the original Intel roadmap slide from September. Below is the ASML edited version superimposing numerals indicating node sizes. As AnandTech notes, people could have extrapolated these from 2019 10nm+, ++ and so on, themselves - but it is good to see it in 'ink'.

Overall the slides represent the intended return to a two year cadence for Intel manufacturing process node upgrades. It shows we are now at 10nm, as far as Intel is concerned, and we will see 7nm EUV in 2021, 5nm and new features in 2023, 3nm in 2025, 2nm in 2027, and the first time we have seen charted or mentioned with respect to Intel: 1.4nm in 2029. This 1.4nm scale means a processor feature could be as small as the length of 12 silicon atoms in a row.

Between each node will be a yearly iterative + version - a 'tock' following the process 'tick', if you like. Furthermore, every node shows an opportunity to back port new process features to the previous node, shown as ++ versions. This can help maintain a smooth flow of product if there are any production issues going forward.

Overall it looks like Intel and ASML are aiming to keep step with Moore's Law for the next decade but this might be more of an optimistic schedule than a cold hard realistic plan. Indeed, beyond 2023 Intel is still in the path-finding and 'research' mode, notes AnandTech. Meaning that it is still looking at and assessing new materials, new transistor designs, and so on. To get to 5nm and beyond Intel is considering introducing stacked nanowires and 3D wafer stacking, as highlighted in a presentation by Jim Keller this summer, marking the 50th anniversary of Moore's Law. See the slide above, which seems to chronographically correspond to the slides atop of this article.

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Stanford University finds that AI is outpacing Moores Law – ComputerWeekly.com

Posted on December 14, 2019 by Danzig

Stanford Universitys AI Index 2019 annual report has found that the speed of artificial intelligence (AI) is outpacing Moores Law.

Moores Law maps out how processor speeds double every 18 months to two years, which means application developers can expect a doubling in application performance for the same hardware cost.

But the Stanford report, produced in partnership with McKinsey & Company, Google, PwC, OpenAI, Genpact and AI21Labs, found that AI computational power is accelerating faster than traditional processor development. Prior to 2012, AI results closely tracked Moores Law, with compute doubling every two years., the report said. Post-2012, compute has been doubling every 3.4 months.

The study looked at how AI algorithms have improved over time, by tracking the progress of the ImageNet image identification program. Given that image classification methods are largely based on supervised machine learning techniques, the reports authors looked at how long it takes to train an AI model and associated costs, which they said represents a measurement of the maturity of AI development infrastructure, reflecting advances in software and hardware.

Their research found that over 18 months, the time required to train a network on cloud infrastructure for supervised image recognition fell from about three hours in October 2017 to about 88 seconds in July 2019. The report noted that data on ImageNet training time on private cloud instances was in line with the public cloud AI training time improvements.

The reports authors used the ResNet image classification model to assess how long it takes algorithms to achieve a high level of accuracy. In October 2017, 13 days of training time were required to reach just above 93% accuracy. The report found that training an AI-based image classification over 13 days to achieve 93% accuracy would have cost about $2,323 in 2017.

The study reported that the latest benchmark available on Stanford DAWNBench , using a cloud TPU on GCP to run the ResNet model to attain image classification accuracy slightly above 93% accuracy, cost just over $12 in September 2018.

The report also explored how far computer vision had progressed, looking at innovative algorithms that push the limits of automatic activity understanding, which can recognise human actions and activities from videos using the ActivityNet Challenge.

One of the tasks in this challenge, called Temporal Activity Localisation, uses a long video sequences that depict more than one activity, and the algorithm is asked to find a given activity. Today, algorithms can accurately recognise hundreds of complex human activities in real time, but the report found that much more work is needed.

After organising the International Activity Recognition Challenge (ActivityNet) for the last four years, we observe that more research is needed to develop methods that can reliably discriminate activities, which involve fine-grained motions and/or subtle patterns in motion cues, objects and human-object interactions, said Bernard Ghanem, associate professor of electrical engineering at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, in the report.

Looking forward, we foresee the next generation of algorithms to be one that accentuates learning without the need for excessively large manually curated data. In this scenario, benchmarks and competitions will remain a cornerstone to track progress in this self-learning domain.

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Stanford University finds that AI is outpacing Moores Law - ComputerWeekly.com

What Is Bankruptcy? – The Balance

Posted on December 14, 2019 by Danzig

Bankruptcy is a federal legal process designed to helpindividuals, spouses, and companies get a financial fresh start by discarding or making arrangements to repay unmanageable debt. It can also be a way for companies to end business and liquidate assets in an orderly way.

The desired outcome of mostbankruptcy cases filed by individuals is a discharge. A discharge is an order from the bankruptcy court permanently prohibiting any creditor from attempting to collect a debt against you. It's also known as a bankruptcy injunction.

Although the discharge is permanent, it is not all-inclusive. Some debts are not dischargeable.For example, most tax debts, child support, and spousal support cannot be discharged.

As the bankruptcy discharge is a very powerful remedy, it is only given to honest debtors that disclose all of their property and debts.

The bankruptcy courts are subunits of the federal district court system. As a result, there is a bankruptcy court in each federal district of the United States. However, depending upon the population of a district, there may be multiple courthouses in different cities. Bankruptcy courts are supervised by bankruptcy judges that are appointed to 14-year terms by federal judicial committees.

There are six type of bankruptcy, known as chapters:

Bankruptcy can have long-term financial and legal consequences. If you're thinking about filing for bankruptcy, then it's wise to consult a lawyer who specializes in this area. If you can't afford a lawyer then check with the American Bar Association to find out if you qualify for free legal help.

In the vast majority of bankruptcy cases, atrustee is automatically appointed when the case is filed. The trustee administers the bankruptcy case by reviewing the documentation of the debtor.

In a Chapter 7 case, the trustee will attempt to sell any non-exempt property to pay creditors. The trustee also has the obligation to be vigilant for fraudulent conduct and failure of the debtor to disclose information. They owe a fiduciary duty to the creditors of a debtor and must collect as many assets as possible to pay creditors.

As bankruptcy is a federal system codified by Congress into the United States Bankruptcy Code, bankruptcy fraud falls under the domain of the federal government. Specifically, bankruptcy fraud, which includes false oaths, failure to disclose debts or assets, and other fraudulent conduct, is a federal crime. Committing bankruptcy fraud can lead to you losing your discharge and could very well land you in jail.

Although the federal government keeps a watchful eye out for bankruptcy fraud, any creditor of a bankruptcy debtor can file a complaint against the debtor. The complaint may seek to deny the debtor a discharge for bankruptcy fraud. In addition, the complaint may seek a judgment by the bankruptcy court that the debt owed to the creditor is non-dischargeable in bankruptcy. A debt may be non-dischargeable under the bankruptcy laws or because the credit was obtained by fraudulent means. Bankruptcy is certainly not a safe haven for the unscrupulous debtor.

Link:

What Is Bankruptcy? - The Balance

Bankruptcy: Chapter 7 vs. Chapter 13 | Experian

Posted on December 14, 2019 by Danzig

If you're in serious debt and can't keep up with repaying loans and credit card bills, Chapter 7 and Chapter 13 bankruptcy are the two most common programs you can use to reduce or eliminate your debt. (In case you're wondering, Chapter 11 is only for businesses.)

Chapter 7 bankruptcy is known as a liquidation bankruptcy. Most of your property is sold and used to pay off your debts. Chapter 7 bankruptcy is generally meant for people with limited incomes who do not have the ability to pay back all or some portion of their debts.

Chapter 13 bankruptcy is referred to as a reorganization bankruptcy. Your property is not sold when you file for Chapter 13 protection, and if you successfully complete a court-mandated repayment plan, you may be able to keep your property.

After completing the repayment plan in which you pay your creditors a portion of the outstanding debt over a fixed period of time, any remaining unsecured debtssuch as credit cards and medical billsmay be "discharged." When debt is discharged, it means you're no longer required to pay back the debt.

Here is a quick reference guide to Chapter 7 and Chapter 13 Bankruptcy.

An important difference between Chapter 7 and Chapter 13 bankruptcy is what happens to your property and possessions.

Most of your property will be sold and used to pay off your debts (for that reason, chapter 7 bankruptcy is often chosen by people who don't own a home). Some of your personal property is exempt from being sold, but there are limits on the value of exemptions.

There are federal exemption rules, as well as state exemption rules. Some states allow you to choose whether you want to use the federal exemptions or your state's guidelines. Other states may insist that you use the state exemption level. Married couples that file for bankruptcy together can typically double the value of exemptions.

Examples of property and value limits mandated by federal Chapter 7 rules include:

*See below for more information.

You can retain up to $23,675 of equity in homes, mobile homes, co-ops or burial plots. If you do not use all of this exemption, up to $11,850 can be used for other property.

If you have less than $23,675 ($47,350 for married couples) in equity in your home, your court-appointed bankruptcy trustee may decide to not sell the home, as there will be no proceeds to pay off your debts after applying your exemption. But that does not prevent your lender from foreclosing on the property.

If your equity exceeds the limit, the house may be sold. You will receive your exemption amount, and the rest of the proceeds will be used to pay off debts.

Personal property can include appliances, book, musical instruments and pets. You are allowed an exemption of $600 per item and a total exemption of $12,625.

Retirement accounts include all savings in a 401(k) or 403(b). The total exemption can be up to $1,283,025 in Individual Retirement Account (IRA) savings.

None of your assets are sold when you file. With a Chapter 13 bankruptcy, you agree to a court-approved repayment plan of your debts. Depending on your income, your repayment period may be three years or five years.

If during the repayment period you catch up on back payments on secured assets (car, home) and are on time with current payments, you will be able to keep them after the repayment plan is finished.

Unsecured debts, including credit card debt and medical debt, can be "discharged" using either Chapter 7 or Chapter 13.

If you qualify for Chapter 7, your unsecured debts will be wiped out when the court approves your filing. This can take a few months.

With a Chapter 13 filing, you must continue to make payments on your unsecured debts during your repayment plan, as instructed in your court-approved plan. If you successfully complete your repayment plan, any remaining unsecured debts may be discharged.

Chapter 7 bankruptcy is typically for people with limited income who do not have the ability to pay back all or some portion of their debts.

If your household income is below the median level for your state, you are eligible for Chapter 7.

If your household income is above the median, you must pass a "means test" that assesses whether you have enough disposable income to be able to pay back some of your debts. Disposable income is income you have left over after covering essential living costs.

If you are deemed to have the means to repay at least some of your debts, you will be required to use Chapter 13 bankruptcy.

To be eligible for a Chapter 13 bankruptcy repayment plan you must have:

Certain debts can't be wiped out in Chapter 7 or Chapter 13. This includes mortgages, and car and student loans.

If you file for Chapter 13 protection, you may be able to have the balance of certain secured loans reduced. For example, in a Chapter 13 "cramdown," your court approved repayment plan may reduce the balance on your car loan to the depreciated value of the car. That can make repayment easier.

Unsecured debts, such as credit card balances and medical debt, can be "discharged" in both types of bankruptcy. In a Chapter 13 bankruptcy, your unsecured debts will only be discharged after you complete the repayment plan.

If you were already behind on debt payments before you filed for bankruptcy, your credit scores may not fall much more once you apply for bankruptcy protection. But typically:

For the 7 or 10 years that a bankruptcy is listed on your credit reports, there will bea negative impact on your credit scores. As time goes by, however, the impact of the bankruptcy on your scores will decline.

During this period you can also begin to rebuild your credit by making on-time bill payments and managing your debts smartly.

You should consider hiring a lawyer who specializes in consumer bankruptcy to help you decide your best bankruptcy option and assist you in petitioning for Chapter 7 or Chapter 13 bankruptcy protection.

You will need to complete a series of official bankruptcy documents. If you are applying for Chapter 13, you will also submit a proposal for repaying your debts. A court-appointed bankruptcy trustee will review your plan, and contact your creditors, before approving a final repayment plan.

Your petition for bankruptcy must be filed at a U.S. Bankruptcy Court. There are more than 90 U.S. Bankruptcy courts in the U.S. Find a local U.S. Bankruptcy Court here.

There is a filing and administrative fee when you file for Chapter 7 or Chapter 13. It costs $335 to file for a Chapter 7 bankruptcy and $310 for a Chapter 13. You can ask the court for permission to pay the fees in four monthly installments. You can also apply to have the fees waived.

If you hire a bankruptcy lawyer, you will also be responsible for paying the lawyer's fees. If you do hire a lawyer, the total cost will likely be somewhere between $1,500 and $4,000 depending on whether your file chapter 13 or 7 and the complexity of the case in general.

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Bankruptcy: Chapter 7 vs. Chapter 13 | Experian

What Is Chapter 7 Bankruptcy? – The Balance

Posted on December 14, 2019 by Danzig

Are you having difficulty keeping up with your bills? Imagine how liberating it would feel if you could just call up a magic genie from a bottle and wish for no debt. Unfortunately, it's not quite that easy, but there are some federal laws that can help you manage or eliminate that debt.

You may have previously seen references to Chapter 7 or Chapter 13 bankruptcies, and you have no idea what either is, much less how they're different. Hopefully, we can demystify these terms.

Chapter 7 is also called straight bankruptcy or liquidation bankruptcy. It's the type most people think about when the word "bankruptcy" comes to mind. In a nutshell, the court appoints a trustee to oversee your case. Part of the trustee's job is to take your assets, sell them and distribute the money to the creditors who file proper claims. The trustee doesn't take all your property. You're allowed to keep enough"exempt" propertyto get a "fresh start."

Before a case is filed, you'll have to gather all of your financial recordslike bank statements, credit card statements, loan documents, and paystubs. You'll use that information to fill out thebankruptcy petition,schedules, statement of financial affairs, and other documents that will be filed with the court.You can download copies for free from the website maintained by the U.S. Courts. Your attorney will use bankruptcy computer applications to produce them.

Broadly, these documents include the voluntary petition for relief, the schedules of assets and liabilities, declarations regarding debtor education, and the statement of financial affairs. These documents require you to open up your financial life to the bankruptcy court. They include a listing of all of your property, debts, creditors, income, expenses, and property transfers, among other things.

Once completed, you'll file it with the clerk of your local bankruptcy court and pay a filing fee. If you're interested in finding your local court, visit the federal court locator page, choose "Bankruptcy" under "Court Type" and add your location in the bottom box.

Almost every individual debtor who wants to file a Chapter 7 case has to participate in a session with an approved credit counselor before the case can be filed. This can be in person, online or over the telephone. The rationale behind this requirement is that some potential debtors don't know their options. A credit counselor may be able to suggest alternatives that will keep you out of bankruptcy. You can get more information about this requirement on thewebsite for the U.S. Trustee.

A debtor must also successfully pass the means test calculation, which is another document that must be completed prior to filing for bankruptcy. This test, which was added to the Bankruptcy Code in 2005, calculates whether you are able to afford, or have the "means" to pay at least a meaningful portion of your debts.

The means test compares your income with the median income for your state. If you fail the means test, you can only file Chapter 7 bankruptcy under very specialized exceptions. Your alternative would be to file a Chapter 13 repayment plan case.You can learn more about the means test and the numbers used in the calculation from the U.S. Trustee website.

After a Chapter 7 bankruptcy is filed, the court will issue a document giving notice of a debtor's meeting of creditors. This notice is also sent to all of the creditors that are listed within the bankruptcy documents. During the meeting of creditors, the bankruptcy trustee will ask the debtor various questions about the bankruptcy, such as whether all of the information contained within the bankruptcy documents is true and correct. The trustee may ask other questions about a debtor's financial affairs. If the trustee wishes to investigate the bankruptcy further, they may continue themeeting of creditors on a future date.

It is important to note that at the meeting of creditors, as the name suggests, any creditor may appear and ask a debtor questions about his bankruptcy and finances. In reality, however, the only creditors who appear regularly are car creditors (to ask what you intend to do about your car payments) and the IRS (to ask when you're going to pay back those non-dischargeable taxes).

If you have any nonexempt property, the bankruptcy trustee has the ability to seize and sell the property. Exemptions refer to federal or state statutes that allow you to protect certain types of property when you file bankruptcy. For example, exemptions exist to protect retirement accounts, such as a 401(k) plan. Any assets that the trustee can recover are distributed to creditors.

Before most debtors can receive a discharge, they will have to take a course in financial management. This class is likely taught by the same group that you used for the credit counseling. Plan to spend about two hours in person, online, or on the telephone.

If the trustee and the creditors do not object to the debtor's discharge, the bankruptcy court will automatically give the debtor a discharge at some point after the last day to object. The last day to file a complaint objecting to a debtor's discharge is 60 days after the first session of the meeting of creditors. If no complaint is filed, the discharge is usually entered several days later.

The discharge prevents creditors from attempting to collect any debt against youpersonally that arose prior to the filing of the bankruptcy. Thus, for all intents and purposes, the discharge effectively wipes out debts. However, it is important to note that not all debts are dischargeable, including certain taxes and child or spousal support obligations. Furthermore, a bankruptcy discharge is personal. This means that a creditor can still collect on a discharged debt from a co-debtor that did not file for bankruptcy. A creditor with collateral may also be able to use that collateral to satisfy some of that outstanding debt.

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What Is Chapter 7 Bankruptcy? - The Balance

U.S. Code: Title 11. BANKRUPTCY | U.S. Code | US Law | LII …

Posted on December 14, 2019 by Danzig

Amendments

2005Pub. L. 1098, title VIII, 801(b), title X, 1007(d), Apr. 20, 2005, 119 Stat. 145, 188, substituted Adjustments of Debts of a Family Farmer or Family Fisherman with Regular Annual Income for Adjustment of Debts of Family Farmers with Regular Annual Income in item for chapter 12 and added item for chapter 15.

1994Pub. L. 103394, title V, 501(d)(39), Oct. 22, 1994, 108 Stat. 4147, struck out item for chapter 15, United States Trustees.

1986Pub. L. 99554, title II, 257(a), Oct. 27, 1986, 100 Stat. 3114, added item for chapter 12.

Table I

This Table lists the sections of former Title 11,

Bankruptcy, and indicates the sections of Title 11,

as revised by Pub. L. 95598 which cover similar

and related subject matter.

1(1)(3)

Rep.

1(4)

101(12)

1(5)(7)

Rep.

1(8)

101(8)

1(9), (10)

Rep.

1(11)

101(9)

1(12), (13)

Rep.

1(14)

101(11)

1(15), (16)

Rep.

1(17)

101(17), (18)

1(18)

Rep.

1(19)

101(26)

1(20)(22)

Rep.

1(23)

101(30)

1(24)

101(31)

1(25), (26)

Rep.

1(27)

101(34)

1(28), (29)

Rep.

1(29a)

101(38)

1(30)

101(40)

1(31)

Rep.

1(32)

101(24)

1(33), (34)

Rep.

1(35)

102(7)

11(a)(1)

109(a)

11(a)(2)

502(j)

11(a)(2A)

505(a), (b)

11(a)(3), (4)

Rep.

11(a)(5)

721

11(a)(6)

Rep.

11(a)(7)

363

11(a)(8)

350

11(a)(9)(14)

Rep.

11(a)(15)

105

11(a)(16)

Rep.

11(a)(17)

324

11(a)(18)

303(i)

11(a)(19), (20)

Rep.

11(a)(21)

543(b), (c)

11(a)(22)

305(a)(2)

11(b)

Rep.

303(h)

109(b)

22(a)

301

22(b)

303(a)

23(a)

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U.S. Code: Title 11. BANKRUPTCY | U.S. Code | US Law | LII ...

Netanyahu’s post-indictment candidacy reflects moral bankruptcy of Likud and the Israeli right – Haaretz

Posted on December 14, 2019 by Danzig

Conventional wisdom about the outcome of Israel's March 2 election can be summed up with Ecclesiastes 1:9: What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.

The perpetual tie between the two main ideological blocs will prevail; the stalemate that has essentially paralyzed the government for close to a year will endure. In fact, according to Channel 12s crack political analyst Amnon Abramovich, while Benjamin Netanyahu is gearing up for the third election he has inflicted on Israel within a year, he is already strategizing how to go on to the fourth, if the need arises.

Netanyahus game plan is simple: (His) immunity or (Israels) bust. His first preference is to win the election with a 61-member, Avigdor Lieberman-less majority that would commit to exempting him from criminal prosecution. His second preference is to keep Israel in limbo or keep it hostage until he can achieve his first preference. He will release his country from captivity, Netanyahu is telling Israelis, only in exchange for a get-out-of-jail-free card.

Netanyahus gambit is based on a ruse. Ever since it became clear that Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit intends to charge him with three counts of corruption, Netanyahu and his minions have highlighted the clause in Israels Basic Law: The Government that compels a prime minister to resign from his post only after he has been tried, convicted and fully exhausted his right to appeal the verdict.

What they have failed to point out is that the Basic Law refers to a duly elected prime minister who is serving out his term. It does not refer to a prime minister, like Netanyahu, who is heading a caretaker government between elections. And it certainly says nothing about the propriety of an indicted politician running for office or setting up a new government after election. Given that in the previous two elections held this year, in April and September, Netanyahu had yet to be formally charged, it is only now that Israel is entering uncharted watersconstitutionally, politically and morally.

Some of Netanyahus opponents are urging Mendelblit to rule on the issue in the hope that he will nix Netanyahus candidacy on legal grounds. The attorney general, for his part, is doing his best to skirt the legal landmine for fear of inflaming vociferous and potentially dangerous right-wing protests against what Netanyahu has described as a legal putsch. The High Court of Justice, however, has ordered Mendelblit to clarify his position, and if he fails to do so, could decide in his stead.

Lost in the complex debate, however, is the appalling fact that Israels ruling party and outgoing right-wing coalition are rallying behind a politician who has been formally indicted for corruption. The working assumption is that Netanyahu will beat challenger Gideon Sa'ar in the December 26 Likud primary election and would thus be reanointed as the rights candidate for prime minister, despite his indictments. Such a decision may or may not be valid from a legal point of view, but it certainly marks an unprecedented new low in Israeli history: A morally bankrupt challenge to the spirit, if not the letter, of the law.

There are numerous explanations as opposed to justifications for Netanyahus enduring hold on Likud and the right. After 10 straight years in power, Netanyahu casts a giant shadow over any potential rival. His omnipresence makes him seem indispensable and irreplaceable in the eyes of his supporters. Without him, they have come to believe, all is lost.

Likudniks, in any case, are loathe to abandon their party leaders, no matter what: In Israels 71-year-long history, Netanyahu is only the fourth politician to serve as leader of the party. Many of them have been brainwashed by Netanyahu to believe that he is the victim of a nefarious, plot inspired by the left wing. Replacing him, many right-wingers believe, would achieve his enemies goals. Worse, it would make them jump for joy.

Most significantly, the right wings continued backing for Netanyahu is a direct challenge to the rule of law. His supporters are not contesting the facts outlined in the attorney generals charge sheet; they are simply ignoring them. And they are well aware that if Netanyahu emerges victorious from the March 2 election, he will use his Knesset majority to thwart his prosecution and thus undermine Israels legal foundations.

So while Israeli politicians and pundits are bemoaning the March 2 ballot as the third in a series of potentially never-ending elections, the upcoming ballot is fundamentally different. In the previous two, Netanyahu supporters could delude themselves that he would not be charged in the end, but now the die is cast and the masks have come off. The right wing can no longer escape the fact that it is lining up behind a leader who has been formally charged with corruption and whose main goal in life is to extricate himself from a criminal trial. Nor can the Israeli electorate.

Which is why one should be wary of resigned predictions that nothing will change, that the third ballot will yield the same political tie that has stalemated Israel for the past year. The polls are already showing a gradual drift away from Netanyahu and increasing chances that Benny Gantzs Kahol Lavan might be able to muster their own 61-member majority, which would mean that Netanyahus career is over.

If the trend holds, Netanyahu will unleash his entire arsenal of divisive incitement and conspiracy theories. He hasnt spent the past year subverting Israeli politics and paralyzing its government only to be tossed out by voters. His counter offensives will be desperate, dangerous and possibly decisive.

Israelis have understandably grown tired of being told that the elections are critical, pivotal or the most dramatic in Israeli history, only to find out after the votes are counted that nothing has changed. Many more of them might be tempted to sit this one out. That would be a shame, because the indictments have rendered the election as much more than a personal referendum on Netanyahuit is a vote on the future character of Israel itself.

So take nothing for granted. Anything can happen. If not on March 2, then certainly in the fourth election that will ensue.

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Netanyahu's post-indictment candidacy reflects moral bankruptcy of Likud and the Israeli right - Haaretz

Bankruptcy Filing by Kaiser Gypsum Company, Inc. and Kaiser Cement Corporation May Affect the Rights of Asbestos Personal Injury Claimants -…

Posted on December 14, 2019 by Danzig

CHARLOTTE, N.C., Dec. 13, 2019 /PRNewswire/ --Kaiser Gypsum Company, Inc. and Kaiser Cement Corporation (now known as Hanson Permanente Cement,Inc.) (together, the "Debtors") made certain products that contained asbestos. These products included various exterior stucco materials, joint compounds for wallboard and radiant heating components, texturizing paint and other related products (the "Products"). A full list of the Products can be found at https://cases.primeclerk.com/kaisergypsum. People using these Products (and family members and others who came into contact with these people) may have been exposed to asbestos. The Debtors are now in bankruptcy and people with claims of injury caused by exposure to asbestos in the Products have certain rights that may be affected by the bankruptcy filing.

The Debtors have filed a Joint Plan of Reorganization (the "Plan") and a Disclosure Statement, a document that provides important information about the Plan. The Disclosure Statement has been approved and will be sent to individuals with asbestos-related personal injury claims so that they can vote whether to accept or reject the Plan. A hearing to consider confirmation of the Plan (the "Confirmation Hearing") has been scheduled for March 30, 2020 to April 4, 2020 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of North Carolina, 401 W. Trade St., Charlotte, NC 28202. Information on the Confirmation Hearing and all Plan-related documents is available at https://cases.primeclerk.com/kaisergypsum.

Am I Affected by the Plan?

If you claim to have been injured by asbestos in any of the Products, you are entitled to vote to approve or reject the Plan. The full Disclosure Statement and a ballot were sent to all lawyers representing individuals with current asbestos-related personal injury claims against the Debtors or directly to those individuals. A vote to accept or reject the Plan must be received by 5:00 p.m., prevailing Eastern Time, on February 20, 2020. If you believe you have an asbestos-related personal injury claim against the Debtors and have questions, then you should contact your lawyer immediately.

What does the Plan do?

The Plan is the result of a settlement between the Debtors and court-appointed representatives of current and future asbestos claimants. The Plan preserves the Debtors' asbestos insurance coverage and permits asbestos personal injury claimants to pursue insurance recoveries in the tort system. The Plan also proposes to create a trust to pay asbestos-related personal injury claims to the extent the claims are not covered by insurance. If the Plan is approved, money can only be received from insurance and the trust; asbestos personal injury claimants will not be able to recover money from the Debtors or other protected parties listed in the Plan. If you have a pending lawsuit against the Debtors, you should talk to your lawyer about how the Plan may affect you.

How to Obtain Documents.

Copies of the Disclosure Statement, which includes the Plan, the voting materials and the notice of the Confirmation Hearing may be obtained by visiting this website: https://cases.primeclerk.com/kaisergypsum. You may also obtain copies of these documents by sending a request, in writing, to Prime Clerk, LLC, Kaiser Gypsum Company, Inc. Ballot Processing, c/o Prime Clerk, One Grand Central Place, 60 East 42nd Street, Suite 1440, New York, New York 10165 or by calling (855) 855-7644.

What if I want to Object to the Plan?

If you have a lawyer, you should talk to him or her about any concerns you may have about the Plan. You may object to the Plan if you do not like all or part of it. The deadline for filing and serving objections to the confirmation of the Plan is 5:00 p.m., prevailing Eastern Time, on February 20, 2020. All objections must comply with the requirements set forth in paragraph 12 of the notice of the Confirmation Hearing, which is posted at https://cases.primeclerk.com/kaisergypsum.

For more information, visit https://cases.primeclerk.com/kaisergypsum or call toll-free (855) 855-7644.

SOURCE U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of North Carolina

https://cases.primeclerk.com/kaisergypsum

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Bankruptcy Filing by Kaiser Gypsum Company, Inc. and Kaiser Cement Corporation May Affect the Rights of Asbestos Personal Injury Claimants -...

PG&E invests in weather stations, cameras to monitor wildfires amid bankruptcy turmoil – Fox Business

Posted on December 14, 2019 by Danzig

Fox Business Briefs: California state regulators find PG&E neglected power lines for years, including the one that sparked the deadly Camp Fire; the dramatic rise and fall of WeWork and its former CEO Adam Neumann will be brought the big screen.

California utilityPacific Gas and Electricis spending thousands of dollars or more on weather stations and cameras to monitor wildfire conditions, the company said on Wednesday shortly after reachinga$13.5 billion settlementfor wildfire-related claims.

The company added more than 600 weather stations and 130 high-definition cameras and it plans to have1,300 stations and 600 cameras installed to saturate high-risk areasby 2022.

PG&E HAD SYSTEMIC PROBLEMS WITH POWER LINE MAINTENANCE, CALIFORNIA PROBE FINDS

"The station observations allow our meteorologists to analyze critical fire weather elements like extreme wind, temperature and low humidity," Ashley Helmetag, a PG&E senior meteorologist, said in a statement. "The stations and cameras are a part of our real-time situational awareness tools that assist us as we make decisions on Public Safety Power Shutoffs to protect our communities."

PG&E did not respond to a request for comment from FOX Business.

Both the weather stations and cameras can cost thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars.

PG&E'ssettlement, which the utility says was reached Friday, still requires court approval. PG&E says it is a key step in leading it out of Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

It adds that the settlement will resolve all claims arising from the 2017 Northern California wildfires, the 2018 Camp Fire, the 2015 Butte Fire and the 2016 Ghost Ship Fire in Oakland.

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However, one of PG&E's main creditors, ElliottManagement Corp., is pressuring California Gov. Gavin Newsom to reject the company's restructuring plan, Bloomberg reported this week. They want an alternative plan that would include the same amount of money for wildfire victims.

Elliott Management said in a statement Tuesday that PG&E's plan "benefits only a small group of its current shareholders at the expense of the utility's other key stakeholders."

Search and rescue workers search for human remains at a trailer park burned by the Camp Fire, Tuesday, Nov. 13, 2018, in Paradise, Calif. (AP Photo/John Locher)

Elliott Managementsaid PG&E's plan would increase the company's debt by $10 billion to $34 billion compared to its January bankruptcy filing. Elliott Management wants to see total debt limited to a more "moderate level."

Controversy over the utility company also comes after PG&E shut off power for hundreds of thousands of customers this year in order to prevent wildfires. PG&E initiated shutoffs so that any power lines damaged by the winds would not contribute to the spread of wildfires. Such decisions were widely seen as a play to limit liability.

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The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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PG&E invests in weather stations, cameras to monitor wildfires amid bankruptcy turmoil - Fox Business

5 years out of bankruptcy, can Detroit avoid another one? – Detroit Free Press

Posted on December 14, 2019 by Danzig

Tuesday marks the five-year anniversary ofDetroit's exitfrom thelargest city bankruptcyin the nation's history.

Now billionslighter in debt and running $100 million-plusannualsurpluses, Detroit isin phenomenally better financial shape than when itentered the bankruptcy, which lasted 17 months.

But the process didnot eliminateall futureobstacles,and whether the citycankeepits budget act together and avoid a do-over bankruptcy is a question that may find ananswer over the next five to seven years.

The first big challenge comes in mid-2023, when Detroit's "pension holiday"ends and it must startmaking fullyearly contributionsabout $163 million a year and every yeartoward two city retirees'pension funds. The city was given avacation from pension payments as part of its post-bankruptcy restructuring plan.

Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, left, accepts a check from Michigan Governor Rick Snyder, as outgoing Detroit emergency manager Kevyn Orr, back right, watches during Press conference to announce the City of Detroit's exit from bankruptcy at the Public Safety Headquarters in Detroit on Wednesday, December 10, 2014.(Photo: Detroit Free Press)

The next obstacle arrives in about 2026, when expenditures in Detroit's annualbudget are projected to begin exceeding revenues.

And yet another hits in the mid-2030swith the expiration of the so-called "Grand Bargain" money that saved city pensioners during the bankruptcy fromdeeper benefits cuts.

"We still have a lot of challenges ahead," said Gerald Rosen, a retiredfederal judge who was the mediator in Detroit's bankruptcy case. "But I dont think anyone could have predicted on July 18 of 2013 that in six years, we'dbe where we are.The city has rebounded; its fiscal health is terrific now compared to where it was."

When Detroit filed for bankruptcy in thatsummer of2013,it was beyond broke and face down in $18 billion ofdebt, unable to payfor many basic city services and at risk of seeing an artwork firesale attheDetroit Institute of Arts to pay offcreditors.

More: Even 5 years later, retirees feel the effects of Detroit's bankruptcy

More: How Detroit went broke: The answers may surprise you and don't blame Coleman Young

It was the culmination of many bad things,including a giantexodus of residents, plummeting tax revenues, a billion-dollar borrowing binge and a failure by leadersto cut expenses when they needed to.

The bankruptcyeradicated$7 billion in debt, eliminatedbillions morein future payments and health-care obligationsforretired city workersand savedDIA artwork from a forced sale.

When Detroit exitedbankruptcy onDec. 10, 2014, the future wasn't supposed to be one of endless austerity.Detroit was givenarestructuring path, called thePlan of Adjustment, that envisioned the cityspending $1.7 billion over 10 years to financenew investments andimprovements toservices.

YetDetroitdidn't emerge with an entirely cleanslate. The city still had debt and future obligations on its books andthe problemof a predominately poor and still-shrinking population within a 139-square-mile city oncehome to 1.2million in 1980.The latest population estimate is 673,100 as of last year.

To prepare forthe coming spikein required pension payments,Detroit City Council and Mayor Mike Duggan created aRetiree Protection Fund to squirrel away some of the budget surplus moneyto later ease the shock of thebigpension payments that startin the 2024 budget year,whichactually begins July 1 of2023.

The protection fundwasn't in the original restructuring plan, but became necessary whenit emergedthat pension consultants during the bankruptcy had used outdated mortality tables whichlowballed the city's estimated pension payments.

TheRetiree Protection Fundis expected to have $335 millionin it by the time the "pension cliff" arrives next decade.

In another move,Detroitrecently doubled the size of its rainy day fund to better prepare for any economic downturn. The rainy day fund is now about 10% of the general fund, up from 5%.

Financial expertshadwarned that two ofDetroit's three largest annual revenue sources income taxes and gaming taxesfrom thethree casinosare atrisk if and when the next recession happens.

There wasnt a single dissenting voice on (city)council, because they all understand the importance of that,"Detroit Chief Financial OfficerDavid Massaron saidabout the rainy day fund increase.I think well be able to manage any economic headwind and the pension cliff in2024."

Council President Brenda Jones, who is also a member ofthe Detroit Financial Review Commission, declined through a representativeaninterview for this story.

The city's other big revenue source, its roughly $200-million-per-yeartake ofstate revenue-sharing funds, is projected to drop by a modest degreeasalikely resultof Detroit havinga smallerpopulation inthe 2020 U.S. Census than in2010.

"The mayor's office has been mobilizing to make sure everyone is counted, but the effect could still be negative for Detroit," financial analysts at S&P Global Ratings said in a report this year.

Mayor Duggan cited theRetiree Protection Fund when asked last weekwhether the city would be ready to makeitslarge pension payments.

"Thats a big reason why weve had so many credit upgrades," he told the Free Press."So I feel very good about where we are.

Wall Street credit rating agencies have praisedDetroit since the bankruptcy for its stabilizedfinances, revitalizeddowntownand success in attracting newhigh-profile development projectssuch as the Flex-N-Gate automotive supplier plant, Ford's train station redevelopmentand this year's announcement of a largeFiat Chrysler plant expansion.

The city's income tax receiptshave grownmore than$70 million since leaving bankruptcy.

But despite giving Detroit some creditupgrades, the rating agenciesstill deem the city's debt assomewhat risky and below investment grade, what is commonly known as "junk."

Financial analysts notehow most of theeye-catching growth hashappened in and around downtownnot throughoutthe city and how Detroit city schools, now known as theDetroit Public Schools Community District,are still struggling and "could also become a major drag on revitalization beyond downtown."

In addition, Detroit did a citywide parcel-by-parcel reappraisal several years agothat resulted in some lower property tax assessments.

"Detroit is left with a combustible brew: a reliance on volatile revenue sources and growing fixed costs," Moody's Investors Service said in reportlast year. "Detroit's combined debt and pension burden compared to the property tax base is extremely high compared with other major cities."

Even so, Detroit hit a milestonelast December when itsold about $135 million in general obligation bonds for capital improvements,at a surprisingly low4.8% interest rate for a junk-rated city not long out of bankruptcy.

The bond sale was not only the city's first sincebankruptcy, butalso itsfirst bond sale inmore than 20 years that didn't require "credit enhancements," such as buying bond insurance, to reassure investors and get abetter rate, according to Massaron. The city even upped the size of the sale by over $20 millionin response tostrong investor demand.

"We were a number of times oversubscribed, which means we had more investors than we had debt to sell,"Massaron said, "which shows that people believe in the continued resurgence and financial stability of the city.

One of itsbiggest achievements was theGrand Bargain, anunprecedented dealthat pooled about $820 million over 20 years inphilanthropicfoundation money and state funds toshore up city retirees' pension fundsandsafeguard the DIAcollection.

Steven Rhodes, the federal judge who presided over the bankruptcy, memorably warned representatives for thecity's retirees to not dismiss the Grand Bargain, even though the deal called forcuts to pensions and health care benefits.

From left, Chrysler executive Reid Bigland, General Motors Mark Reuss, Ford Motor Co.s Joe Hinrichs, Detroit Institute of Arts Director Graham Beal, Detroit emergency manager Kevyn Orr, Chief U.S. District Judge Gerald Rosen and DIA Arts Chairman of the Board Eugene Gargaro Jr. listen during a news conference announcing pledges to the DIAs grand bargain commitment in June. (Photo: Romain Blanquart/Detroit Free Press)

Detroit's bankruptcywas officially classified as a Chapter 9 municipal bankruptcy.

"Now is not the time for defiant swagger or for dismissive pound-the-table, take-it-or-leave-it proposals that are nothing but a one-way ticket to Chapter 18," he said. "This is bankruptcy jargon for a second Chapter 9."

In the end, the city's two older pension plans were frozen and retirees saw their benefits cut. Still, the cuts were smaller than they likely would have been without the Grand Bargain. Twonew pension plans were createdfor current and future workers. About 32,000 active or retired workers were impacted.

The police and firefighter pensioners didn'tface upfront cuts to their pension checks, but saw their2.25% annual cost-of-living increases reduced to about 1%. They also took cuts related to health care.

The city's general retirees took a 4.5% base cut in pensions and the elimination of annual cost-of-living increases.

To implement the Grand Bargain funding, a new nonprofit affiliate of the Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan was set up called the Foundation for Detroit's Future.

"The idea in the Grand Bargain was there were going to be financial controls and oversight to make sure the city did not fall into the same bad habits that got them there,"said DougBernstein, a bankruptcy attorney at Plunkett Cooney in Bloomfield Hills who is counsel for the new foundation.

Collage of former Detroit Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr (left), Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (center) and Judge Bernard Rosen (right), who negotiated the Grand Bargain as Detroit moved to exit bankruptcy.(Photo: DFP)

Upon exiting bankruptcy, the city was placed under oversight of anine-member Detroit Financial Review Commission, chaired by the state treasurer, that initially oversawall city budgets, borrowing andlarge city-issued contracts.

After the city delivered three consecutive years of balanced budgets, the commission released Detroit in April 2018 from direct oversight. The commission continues to monitor Detroit's financial situation and can comeback if the budget falls out of balance.

On the budget front,startingabout2026, the city'sexpenditures areforecast to begin exceeding revenues. Avoiding that problem will require"more economic growth and development," according to the forecast.

Detroit did a debt restructuring last yearto preventa $25-million debt spike in themid-2020s. That maneuver ultimately saved some money, but pushed forward some higher debt paymentsinto the following decade.

"It is incumbent upon the mayor and city council to work together through upcoming budgets to ensure we continue on a fiscally sustainable path,"Massaron, the city's CFO, said in an email about the forecasted budget imbalance.

Yet another big challenge arrivesin 2034-2035 budget year, whenthe Grand Bargain expires. The city's pension payments from its general fund will then jumpto about $181 million per year.

Massaron said Detroit remains on pace to achieve its $1.7 billion spending goal forcity servicesby the 10-year anniversary of exiting bankruptcy. Some of the investments so far include:

An estimated 40% of Detroit's streetlights weren't working at the time of the bankruptcy. In 2016, Detroit became the largest U.S. city to haveall light-emitting diode (LED) streetlights. That three-year, $185-million projectwas financed througha public authority separate from city governmentand wasset in motion by former Mayor Dave Bing.

Massaron said he doesn't considerthe city in anydanger of a secondbankruptcy.

Right now, I would say the answer is no," he said. "And I would say the answer is no in large part because we have alignment among policymakers around making fiscally responsible decisions."

Rosen, the former bankruptcy mediator, said he gives city officials "an A+" for their management of Detroitsince leaving bankruptcy.

"I think the measure of the success is the rebound the city is experiencing now," he said.

Contact JC Reindlat 313-222-6631 or jcreindl@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter@jcreindl. Read more on business and sign up for our business newsletter.

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5 years out of bankruptcy, can Detroit avoid another one? - Detroit Free Press

What Gigi and Bella Hadid Think of Dad Mohamed Hadids $100 Million Bankruptcy Nightmare – Us Weekly

Posted on December 14, 2019 by Danzig

Family drama. One month after real estate developer Mohamed Hadid was ordered to tear down his $100 million Bel Air mansion due to safety concerns, neighbors allege that Gigi and Bella Hadids dad is committing bankruptcy fraud by removing valuables from the property.

The real estate developers 901 Strada LLC declared bankruptcy on November 27, a move that, while stressful, Gigi and Bella are relieved about. [They] know that the filing caused a lot of stress but are happy its settled, a source exclusively reveals in the new issue of Us Weekly.

The neighbors suspect the tycoon, 71, will try to avoid paying for the mansions $5 million demolition, which hes said he cant afford, and therefore the responsibility would fall on local taxpayers. However, Hadids lawyer denies any wrongdoing.

Formoreon the Hadid scandal, watch the video above, and pick up the new issue of Us Weekly, on newsstands now.

With reporting by Brody Brown

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What Gigi and Bella Hadid Think of Dad Mohamed Hadids $100 Million Bankruptcy Nightmare - Us Weekly

U.S. government objects to letting Reagor Dykes continue in bankruptcy – KLBK | KAMC | EverythingLubbock.com

Posted on December 14, 2019 by Danzig

LUBBOCK, Texas The United States Trustee asked a judge to basically toss out the Reagor Dykes reorganization plan and convert its bankruptcy case from Chapter 11 (reorganization) to Chapter 7 (liquidation).

The trustee suggested January 7 be the cutoff date for Reagor Dykes to get a plan approved or else stop reorganization.

The office of trustee listed out the net losses of seven Reagor Dykes companies that field for bankruptcy in August 2018.

a) Reagor-Dykes, LP: net loss of $3,190,437.00b) Reagor-Dykes Snyder: net loss of $717,602.00c) Reagor-Dykes Floydada, LP: net loss of $2,001,799.00d) Reagor-Dykes Auto Company, LP: net loss of $2,790,368.00e) Reagor-Dykes Auto Mall, LLC: net loss of $2,676,907.00f) Reagor Dykes Imports, LP: net loss of $2,346,225.00g) Reagor Dykes Amarillo, LP: net loss of $2,001,291.00

On Tuesday the trustee wrote in court records, the Debtors have been in bankruptcy collectively for 496 days and have been unable to confirm a plan.

The United States Trustee Program is a division of the U.S. Department of Justice to oversee bankruptcy cases.

Reagor Dykes filed for bankruptcy after Ford Motor Credit Company made allegations of fraud and default. Local banks also made allegations of fraud. So far, nine former Reagor Dykes employees pleaded guilty to federal charges.

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U.S. government objects to letting Reagor Dykes continue in bankruptcy - KLBK | KAMC | EverythingLubbock.com

NSO > Home – natoschool.nato.int

Posted on December 14, 2019 by Danzig

By Ms. Liliana Serban, ROU-CIV,Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) Course Director/ Liaison Officer

On 17 Oct 19, the NATO School Oberammergau (NSO), together with the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS), Monterey, USA, concluded the second cyber security course at the NATO-Istanbul Cooperation Initiative (ICI) Regional Centre in Kuwait.

The first course, Introduction to Network Security, held from 24 Mar to 04 Apr 19, was followed by an Introduction to Network Vulnerability Assessment & Risk Mitigation, from 06 to 17 Oct 19. The courses were organised under the auspices of the NATO Science for Peace and Security (SPS) Programme and brought together 40 IT specialists, network security administrators, technicians and engineers from different governmental agencies representing all the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries.

These tailor-made courses are aimed at strengthening the ties between the countries in the Gulf region and NATO and at developing local cyber expertise by addressing the bits-in-transit aspect of network security and potential vulnerabilities and their mitigation in networked systems.

"The security and stability of the region heavily depend on reliable cyber infrastructure, and these courses represent a significant added value to NATOs efforts on projecting stability to the South of the Alliance", underlined Colonel Brian Hill, USA-AF, the NSO Dean of Academics, in his closing remarks.

Inaugurated in Jan 17, the NATO-ICI Regional Centre is the hub for education, training, and other cooperation activities between NATO and its ICI partners in the Gulf, including Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

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NSO > Home - natoschool.nato.int

LAWSON: NATO’s 70th anniversary marks a decisive moment for its future – University of Virginia The Cavalier Daily

Posted on December 14, 2019 by Danzig

Earlier this week, President Donald Trump and other world leaders convened in London for a NATO summit commemorating the military alliances 70th anniversary. As predicted, Trump focused his attention on many member countries failure to devote 2 percent of their GDP to national defense a financial obligation for participants in the alliance. The tense meeting came to a tumultuous end on Wednesday, after footage of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau mocking Trump with European leaders came to light. Trumps abrupt cancellation of the summits closing news conference, and his denunciation of Trudeau as two-faced, are revealing of the deep-seated disjointedness in the organization.

The aggravation of longstanding problems with NATOs solidarity, going back to its founding, threatens its future in a decisive period for the worlds balance of power. In order to counter mounting military threats from adversaries like China and Russia, NATO must reevaluate its collective goals and commitments.

From its founding in 1949, NATO has been one of the most effective international alliances in modern history. It was devised by Western powers in response to rising Soviet influence in Europe, and has been financially and strategically bulwarked by the United States ever since. For 42 years, the organization created a period of strained coexistence between the worlds competing hegemons in all likelihood, preventing a nuclear conflict. When the threat that prompted its conception disintegrated in 1991, NATO struggled to reorient and coordinate its unifying objective in an entirely new geopolitical environment. Beginning with the Clinton administration, the alliance has experienced a gradual recession from global prominence politically, militarily and financially.

Despite Trumps rhetorical attacks on the organization and its member states, however, American commitment to NATO remains disproportionately firm. Almost 70 percent of national defense spending is supplied by the United States, well over the 2 percent GDP threshold set for member states at 3.4 percent of the U.S.s GDP. In the past three years, the U.S. has significantly raised the budget for the European Defense Initiative, pledged to increase its military presence in Poland and headed the effort to counter Iranian aggression in international waterways. At its creation, the United States asymmetrical power and financial responsibility in NATO was a way to help weakened European countries counter a growing military threat from the Soviet Bloc with the implication that European members would eventually uphold their end of the deal. Even as Western Europe has accumulated wealth over the past 70 years, it has never set about fulfilling this task.

As the United States seeks to displace the financial burden of NATO on its allies, it faces increased criticism. Leading up to last weeks summit, French President Emmanuel Macron called into question Americas willingness to contribute to the alliances collective defense, stating, What we are currently experiencing is the brain death of NATO. His statements from last month came in response to Trumps decision to pull U.S. forces out of northern Syria, leaving the Syrian Kurds vulnerable to a Turkish offensive. To President Macron, Americas abrupt decision signalled the decline in U.S. collaboration with its transatlantic allies.

However, the real failures of NATO arise not due to a lack of coordination across the Atlantic, but due to the disjuncture between its European member states. Since the organizations founding, France has sought to cultivate European unity by propagating hostility toward American influence. Overall, these efforts have been ineffective because of Frances inability to estimate the goals of its European neighbors. Macron advocates for the creation of an independent European army under its lead, but disregards the aims of Germany which would be primarily responsible for financing the project. And far from rallying Europe under a common cause, Macrons comments about NATOs brain death at the hands of the U.S. have provoked harsh criticism from German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

NATO is at a crossroads. Although many of the issues it faces have plagued the organization for decades, the exacerbation of these tensions could lead to the downfall of the worlds most effective defensive alliance. This breakdown would coincide with rising threats to international security from China, Russia and terrorist organizations in the Middle East. To restore the transatlantic alliance to its former prominence, the U.S. must play a leading role in establishing consensus among member states. It must set collective goals for the organization and promote mutual investment from countries not paying their dues. NATOs challenges extend beyond the trivial spats of world leaders, and must be met with corresponding commitment.

Charlotte Lawson is an Opinion Columnist for The Cavalier Daily. She can be reached at opinion@cavalierdaily.com.

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LAWSON: NATO's 70th anniversary marks a decisive moment for its future - University of Virginia The Cavalier Daily

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