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The Supreme Court is hearing its first oral arguments of the 2024-25 term today. The case, Garland v. VanDerStok, surrounds a 2022 regulation on so-called “ghost guns”—untraceable firearm components made through 3D printing, kits, and parts.
At issue is whether the Biden administration overstepped its authority in amending the 1968 definition of a firearm to include parts capable of being converted into a gun in under 30 minutes. The change, by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, requires manufacturers to run background checks on buyers and mark products with serial numbers, among other obligations. The amended rule came after what the administration says was a roughly tenfold increase in the number of ghost guns recovered at crime scenes since 2017, with law enforcement recovering ghost guns in up to 15% of gun-related crimes.
The Supreme Court term will last through June, covering cases such as sex-transition procedures, age verification for pornography websites, and nuclear waste. See an overview here. |
Asteroid 'Crash-Scene' Mission |
SpaceX successfully launched the European Space Agency's Hera spacecraft from Florida yesterday. The car-sized spacecraft will investigate the effects of NASA's 2022 Double Asteroid Redirection Test, which impacted Dimorphos, a 495-foot-wide moon orbiting the larger asteroid Didymos.
Hera will embark on a two-year journey before reaching its orbit of the Didymos-Dimorphos system. The spacecraft aims to conduct detailed observations of the crater left by DART and analyze the asteroid’s internal structure, focusing on its composition, gravity, and mass. Hera will first test its scientific instruments by observing Earth and the moon, followed by a gravity-assist flyby of Mars in March. When it reaches Didymos-Dimorphos in late 2026, it will be about 121 million miles from Earth.
The collaborative mission between NASA and ESA is aimed at developing future asteroid deflection techniques to protect Earth from potentially hazardous asteroids. Scientists have located over 36,000 near-Earth asteroids, of which roughly 11,000 are 460 feet or larger in diameter. Follow Hera's path here. |
Singer Cissy Houston Dies |
Renowned gospel and soul singer Cissy Houston—mother of Whitney Houston—passed away yesterday at her home in New Jersey while receiving hospice care for Alzheimer's disease. The two-time Grammy winner was 91.
Born Emily Drinkard, Cissy was the youngest of eight siblings and began her career at age 5 in 1938 when she joined a family gospel group called The Drinkard Four, later renamed The Drinkard Singers. The group went on to perform at Carnegie Hall and, in 1959, became one of the first gospel acts to release an album with a major record label. In 1963, Cissy formed The Sweet Inspirations, providing backup vocals for artists including Aretha Franklin and Elvis Presley during the 1960s. She went solo in 1969, recorded over 600 songs in multiple genres, released 10 solo albums, and provided backup for artists like Beyoncé and Jimi Hendrix.
Cissy's daughter and Grammy winner, Whitney, died in 2012 at age 48, while her granddaughter, Bobbi Kristina Brown, died in 2015 at age 22—both facing similar tragedies. |
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Research Uncovers Key Factor in Aging Process |
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Sports, Entertainment, & Culture |
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> The 2024-25 NHL regular season kicks off tonight; see preview and predictions for all 32 teams (More) | New England Patriots safety and team captain Jabrill Peppers arrested on strangulation and drug possession charges (More) |
> Taylor Swift passes Rihanna to become richest female musician in the world with an estimated net worth of $1.6B (More) |
> Connecticut Sun take on Minnesota Lynx tonight (8 pm ET, ESPN2) in decisive WNBA Semifinals Game 5 (More) | LeBron James and son Bronny become NBA's first father-son duo to share court as both played in the Los Angeles Lakers preseason game Sunday night (More) |
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> Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine awarded to pair of researchers for their discovery of microRNA, tiny molecules that help regulate gene expression (More) | Prize in Physics announced at 5:45 am ET this morning; see selection here (More) |
> Comb jellies, a type of deep sea jellyfish, can fuse their bodies together following injury; behavior has never been observed in any other species (More) |
> Researchers find a common chemotherapy drug may kill healthy cells in cases of colon and gastrointestinal cancers; findings may lead to improved drug combinations in such cases (More) |
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> US stock markets close lower (S&P 500 -1.0, Dow -0.9, Nasdaq -1.2%) as US 10-year Treasury yield rises above 4% for first time since August (More) | Shares of generator maker Generac close up nearly 9% as Hurricane Milton intensifies (More) |
> Activist investor Starboard Value reportedly takes $1B stake in Pfizer, looks to tap former Pfizer CEO Ian Read and other ex-executives for help in turning around the drugmaker (More) | "Assassin's Creed" maker Ubisoft reportedly considering going private (More) |
> Judge orders Google to offer alternatives to its Google Play store as part of final ruling in Epic Games' antitrust lawsuit against the tech giant (More) | Amazon kicks off second annual Prime Day 48-hour sale today (More) |
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> Hurricane Milton strengthens to Category 5 storm—the strongest level—as Florida braces for landfall midweek, with storm surge warnings posted for Florida's western Gulf Coast (More) | Why Tampa Bay is vulnerable to the storm (More) |
> New York City deputy mayor Phil Banks (D) resigns, becoming latest member of Mayor Eric Adams (D) administration to step down amid corruption probe; Adams was indicted last month on charges including bribery and wire fraud (More) |
> Georgia Supreme Court restores state's six-week abortion ban while it considers an appeal to a lower court decision that had briefly struck down the 2022 law (More) |
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> The Human Cost of Our AI-Driven Future
Noema Magazine | Adio Dinika. As social media platforms moderate violent, graphic content, they often require human labor to check each image. See profiles of the people sifting through our internet to filter what we don't want to see. (Read)
> Getting Lost in Netflix’s Endless Library
New York Times | Willy Staley. How Netflix’s business model in the early 2010s remade the television business—and produced an overabundance of content one person cannot possibly consume in a lifetime. (Read) |
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- Andrew Lloyd Webber, musical composer of "Cats" |
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