NASA spacecraft around the moon photographs crash site of Japanese company’s lunar lander

Source: SFGate

“A NASA spacecraft around the moon has photographed the crash site of a Japanese company’s lunar lander. NASA released the pictures Friday, two weeks after ispace’s lander slammed into the moon. The images show a dark smudge where the lander, named Resilience, and its mini rover crashed into Mare Frigoris or Sea of Cold, a volcanic region in the moon’s far north. A faint halo around the area was formed by the lunar dirt kicked up by the impact. NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter captured the scene last week. The crash was the second failure in two years for Tokyo-based ispace. Company officials plan to hold a news conference next week to explain what doomed the latest mission, launched from Cape Canaveral in January.” (06/20/25)

https://www.sfgate.com/business/article/nasa-spacecraft-around-the-moon-photographs-the-20386470.php

Steve Trinward

The State vs. Our Privacy

Source: Common Sense
by Paul Jacob

“Defaulting to routine invasive scanning means an end to providing users with encryption, including users threatened by despotic regimes. Current law already requires platforms to report known examples of material that entails the sexual abuse of children. Any good or service that can be put to good use can also be put to evil use. Just as we shouldn’t penalize the makers of knives, forks, mail, curtains, roads, and guns for their use by criminals, the makers of encryption services should also not be so punished. Nor should we grant to government bodies such a frightening dystopian power, accumulated to override our basic freedoms.” (06/20/25)

https://thisiscommonsense.org/2025/06/20/the-state-vs-our-privacy/

Thomas L. Knapp

Will NYC’s Long-Suffering Tenants Carry Zohran Mamdani to Victory?

Source: In These Times
by Thomas Birmingham

“It was early afternoon in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, and Amala Dufour was having her first canvassing conversation of the day. Clad in a bright, lime green baseball cap with ​’FREEZE THE RENT’ lettering, Dufour handed a petition to a young Black woman, who, bracing the clipboard against her door frame to sign, had just recounted Dufour’s pitch to perfection. Both Dufour — and now the woman she just recruited to the cause — are among a group of more than 20,000 New York City tenants pledging to vote for Zohran Mamdani in the Democratic primary on Tuesday, June 24, in large part because he is the only mayoral candidate unequivocally backing the call for a four-year freeze on increases in rent-stabilized apartments.” [editor’s note: If their only “choice” is between scumbag grandma-killer Cuomo and avowed commie Mamdani, not much hope for the Apple – SAT] (06/21/25)

https://inthesetimes.com/article/zohran-mamdani-andrew-cuomo-renters-tenants

Steve Trinward

OR: Intruder hospitalized after being shot by armed homeowner during attempted break-in

Source: KATU 2 News

“A homeowner shot and injured a man who was breaking into his home in North Portland early Thursday morning, police said. … The homeowner tells KATU News that the person he shot had been bashing on the door for about 10 minutes, claiming he lived there. The homeowner said he warned the would-be intruder that he was armed. ‘Officers applied a tourniquet to control bleeding, and the man was taken to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries,’ Sgt. Kevin Allen said in a statement.” (06/20/25)

https://katu.com/news/local/intruder-hospitalized-after-being-shot-by-armed-homeowner-during-attempted-break-in

Thomas L. Knapp

Ukraine: One killed and 14 injured in overnight Russian attack on Odesa

Source: NBC News

“One person was killed and at least 14 were injured when Russian drones attacked the Ukrainian Black Sea city of Odesa overnight, damaging high-rise buildings and railway infrastructure, local authorities and prosecutors said Friday. Odesa is Ukraine’s largest Black Sea port, key for imports and exports, and has been under constant missile and drone attacks by Russia since the war began. … Russian drones also attacked Kharkiv in northeastern Ukraine overnight, damaging several private and multi-story houses, Kharkiv officials said.” (06/20/25)

https://www.nbcnews.com/world/ukraine/one-killed-14-injured-overnight-russian-attack-ukraines-odesa-rcna214046

Thomas L. Knapp

At This Point, A Nuclear Iran Is Probably The Least Bad Option

Source: Garrison Center
by Thomas L Knapp

“If there’s any lesson to learn from two decades of US and Israeli pressure on Iran to shut down a non-existent ‘nuclear weapons program,’ starting with economic sanctions and leading inevitably to Israeli airstrikes and open war on the apt date of Friday the 13th, it’s that an Iran with nuclear weapons just might be the best option if the goal is to calm down the Middle East.” (06/19/25)

https://thegarrisoncenter.org/archives/19712

Thomas L. Knapp