ศาสตราจารย์เลิบกำลังจะเปิดตัวหนังสือเล่มล่าสุดของเขาที่มีชื่อว่า “สิ่งมีต่างดาว: สัญญาณแรกของชีวิตที่ชาญฉลาดจากนอกโลก” (Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth) ซึ่งจะวางจำหน่ายในวันที่ 26 มกราคม โดยศาสตราจารย์เลิบได้กล่าวถึงกรณีที่น่าสนใจว่วัตถุแปลกปลอมที่เพิ่งหลงเข้ามาในระบบสุริยะของเราไม่ใช่แค่ดาวหางหรืออุกกาบาต แต่จริงๆ แล้วมันเป็นเทคโนโลยีของมนุษย์ต่างดาว
New York Post รายงานว่าวัตถุดังกล่าวเดินทางจากทิศทางของเวก้าซึ่งเป็นดาวฤกษ์ที่อยู่ใกล้ระบบสุริยะของเราซึ่งอยู่ห่างออกไป 25 ปีแสงและต่อมาเข้าสู่วงโคจรของระบบสุริยะของเราเมื่อวันที่ 6 กันยายน 2017
Tesla delivers 499,550 vehicles in 2020, just shy of target
InternationalJan 03. 2021Tesla Inc. vehicles at the assembly plant in Fremont, Calif., on Aug. 13, 2020. MUST CREDIT: Bloomberg photo by David Paul Morris.
By Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Dana Hull
Tesla delivered a record number of cars worldwide in the fourth quarter of 2020, but fell just shy of a goal for 500,000 units for the full year.
The electric-car maker delivered 180,570 vehicles in the last three months of the year, eclipsing its prior all-time high of 139,300 in the third quarter of 2020 while increasing 36% from 367,500 deliveries in 2019. The company has been ramping up output of its mass market models to meet rising global demand for battery-powered cars.
The Palo Alto, California-based company said in a statement on Saturday its delivery count should be viewed as slightly conservative and final numbers could vary by up to 0.5% or more.
The quarterly delivery figure is widely seen as a barometer of demand for both Tesla’s vehicles and consumer interest in electric vehicles worldwide. The result capped a remarkable year for Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk and his company, which joined the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index on Dec. 21 after posting five consecutive quarters of profit.
The company’s shares rallied 743% last year.
Tesla had predicted in January 2020 — before the onset of the coronavirus pandemic — it would “comfortably exceed” sales of half a million cars. The company said in October that it still expected to meet that target despite a temporary shutdown of its factories in the spring, and Musk signaled it was well within reach in a internal email sent to employees in December and viewed by Bloomberg.
Analysts also predicted Tesla would meet its sales goal for the year, which further buoyed the company’s shares in the waning days of 2020. The surge, coming despite multiple share offerings, has vaulted Tesla’s valuation to an auto industry-leading $669 billion.
The company undershot the 181,000-vehicle threshold it needed to clear in the most recent quarter, a 30% jump over the July-September period. The push largely depended on increased output from its Chinese plant and higher output in the U.S. of the newest car in its lineup: the Model Y.
On Saturday, Tesla said Model Y production in Shanghai has begun, with deliveries expected to begin soon.
While Tesla is the clear global market leader, its vehicle deliveries are tiny compared to the millions of gasoline-powered cars and trucks sold by established automakers such as General Motors and Volkswagen. Those two carmakers and others are preparing to flood the nascent EV market with dozens of battery-powered models over the next five years.
To capitalize on its head start, Tesla is building two new vehicle assembly operations — one in Berlin that could eventually assemble as many as 500,000 cars annually, and another in Austin, Texas, that will make the brand’s first pickup. Both are expected to start production later this year, joining its existing vehicle-assembly facilities in Fremont, California, and Shanghai.
Once known for niche luxury models such as its S sedan and X sport utility vehicle, Tesla has broadened its appeal with the 3 and Y models priced to start below $50,000. Musk said in September that he plans to start sales of a cheaper $25,000 Tesla by 2023.
As usual, Tesla delivered many cars during the quarter’s final days. Musk added an incentive to buyers in the final three days of the year, saying in a tweet that they would get three months of an optional driver-assistance tool Tesla calls Full Self-Driving.
Danielle Watson, a 31-year-old pharmacist, tweeted on Dec. 28 that she had just taken delivery of a Model Y. In a private message, the Greenville, South Carolina, resident said she took delivery in Charlotte, North Carolina — a sign the lure of Tesla’s brand power in the U.S. is growing well beyond its home state of California.
Over 30 countries have reported cases of the highly-transmissible U.K. variant of the novel coronavirus, raising fears of increased global spread of the virus, even as countries begin to unroll vaccination programs in the new year.
Vietnam on Saturday was the latest nation to report a case, which authorities detected in a woman quarantined after recent travel from the United Kingdom. Vietnam has banned nearly all international travel, but it is providing repatriation flights for citizens stranded in the U.K.
Turkey reported Friday its first 15 cases of the U.K. variant, found in recent travelers from the U.K., leading Turkish authorities to issue a temporary ban on entries from the there. Turkey, along with many other countries, suspended flights between the United Kingdom in late December.
At least three U.S. states have identified cases of the variant. Public health officials, however, say it is likely already spreading undetected due to limited genetic sequencing of the coronavirus in the United States.
The United States leads the world in coronavirus cases and deaths, though widespread transmission of the fast-spreading form of the virus would likely lead to even larger outbreaks, putting further strain on the country’s already overwhelmed health-care system.
In recent weeks British authorities have imposed strict lockdowns on millions of people as the variant, first documented in late September, has led to surges in infections. So far, scientists do not think that the fast-spreading form of the virus is more deadly or vaccine resistant.
As global infections continue to rapidly rise, Ireland has recently gone from having the European Union’s lowest per capita rate of cases to the fastest growing, the Guardian reported.
“The virus is absolutely rampant now in the community,” the CEO of Ireland’s health services Paul Reid said Friday. “Everybody is at extreme risk of contracting the virus.”
But Philip Nolan, the head of Ireland’s covid-19 modeling group, told national news broadcaster RTE on Saturday that the U.K. variant represented between 5% and 17% of current cases, according to the latest available genetic analysis.
While Nolan’s predicted new infections would continue to increase as the variant spreads, he attributed the current surge to socializing over the Christmas holiday.
“Right now we believe the UK variant is here at a relatively low level, even with that small sample,” he said. “We saw an even more intense level of socialization and viral transmission over Christmas than we might have expected and that’s what’s leading us to the really precarious position we’re in now.”
The bleak return to lockdowns in many communities across the globe comes in sharp contrast to the hopeful rollout of vaccines programs in some countries.
Israel has provided the first of two coronavirus vaccine shots to more than a million of its citizens, the highest rate in the world since beginning its efforts in late December. The United States, in contrast, vaccinated some 2.8 million people by Dec. 30, falling far short of President Trump’s pledge to inoculate 20 million people by the years end.
Despite widespread expectations that vaccines will turn the tide of the pandemic, it will still take weeks for the initial shots to kick in and months before vaccines will likely become available for a majority of the world’s communities and countries, in particular poorer ones. Adding to concerns, significant percentages of many populations have reported hesitations around injecting the fast-tracked vaccines, while health experts worry about the impact of disinformation campaigns dissuading publics from taking it.
As the United Kingdom tries to contain the U.K. variant, health authorities have also deviated some from initial inoculation plans.
On Wednesday, British health officials said they would prioritize giving more people the first shot to ensure wider, partial protection from the virus, and in turn delay providing the second injection, only after which is the vaccine is most effective.
PARIS – An illegal New Year’s Eve party that drew around 2,500 people to a small French village came to an end Saturday morning, more than 24 hours after authorities had to abort an initial attempt to shut the rave down.
“Sound equipment and generators were seized,” France’s Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said Saturday morning, adding that the organizers would be “severely punished.”
Around 1,200 penalty notices have been issued, local officials said, with most of them being linked to violations of coronavirus restrictions.
Regional authorities set up a coronavirus testing site near the rave’s location and urged all participants to quarantine for seven days, amid concerns that the event could worsen an anticipated rise in novel coronavirus infections in the coming weeks.
“We must consider that all the participants in this rave party were exposed,” regional health official Stéphane Mulliez told radio network France Bleu.
The party in Lieuron, a village in France’s northwestern region of Brittany, had gone ahead despite a nationwide 8 p.m. curfew and other restrictions on large gatherings.
When officers tried to move into the warehouses where the party was taking place on Thursday night, several officers suffered minor injuries in clashes with revelers. A police car was torched.
After the officers retreated, first-aid workers were sent in to distribute masks and hand sanitizer among the partygoers.
Partying continued Friday, even as French officials pleaded with the participants to leave and as inquietude mounted within the French government. Photos from inside the warehouses showed that only a few participants, who included foreigners, wore masks and that social distancing was virtually impossible.
“This gathering,” wrote local official Florian Bachelier on Twitter, “shames our country and our caregivers.”
Police officers had begun cordoning the site shortly after the party began, in an effort to prevent more people from joining it and to fine those who left.
Despite concerns that officers moving in may cause a mass panic, pressure to end the event – which was originally set to continue until Tuesday – mounted Friday, and France’s interior minister called a meeting. France’s BFM television channel reported that one scenario involved the deployment of the French military to the party site.
But by Saturday morning, the partygoers had begun to disperse, with some reportedly managing to leave the site without being intercepted by officers stationed around the area.
French officials fear that year-end parties, including the rave in Lieuron, will trigger a surge in new infections in the coming weeks.
France lifted some coronavirus restrictions – including its nighttime curfew – for Christmas Eve, despite a warning from the government-advising Scientific Council that family reunions and parties may spark an “uncontrolled resumption of the epidemic” this month.
France reported over 19,000 new coronavirus infections on Friday, fewer than during the peak of the second wave in November but almost four times more than the target of 5,000 that the government had set.
As a result, France has called off the easing of existing restrictions. Some parts of the country face additional measures, with an extended nighttime curfew beginning at 6 p.m. instead of 8 p.m. set to take effect Saturday.
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) helps put the state’s first shipment of a coronavirus vaccine in a Denver freezer on Dec. 14. (David Zalubowski/AP)
By The Washington Post · Isaac Stanley-Becker
First came the outcry in a Denver newspaper op-ed, arguing that Colorado’s coronavirus vaccination plan would bring relief to a man who fatally shot four people before it protected the author’s law-abiding, 78-year-old father.
Then came the backlash on social media. The accusation that state leaders were coddling convicts like Nathan Dunlap, who is being held for life in the Colorado State Penitentiary for the 1993 slayings at a Chuck E. Cheese restaurant, caught fire in pro-Trump Facebook groups with titles such as “ALL ABOARD THE TRUMP TRAIN.” Within days, the person behind the broadside, a Republican district attorney, was making his case on Fox News, labeling the state’s vaccination plan “crazy.”
The plan, which put incarcerated people in line for coronavirus immunization ahead of the elderly and those with chronic conditions, had been released by the state health department. It was the product of months of deliberation by members of the state’s medical advisory group – physicians, public health officials and experts in bioethics. But their framework, when subject to the machinery of online outrage, quickly unraveled.
Asked by a Fox News reporter about the prioritization, and the criticism touched off by the op-ed, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, said at a December news briefing there was “no way” the limited supply of shots would “go to prisoners before it goes to people who haven’t committed any crime.” He let out a short laugh as he pronounced the word “prisoners.”
As promised, a revised version of the state’s plan, released a week later without input from the advisory panel, put incarcerated people in no particular phase. It similarly demoted people living in homeless shelters and other congregate settings, while guaranteeing access to front-line workers and adults 70 and older as part of the priority group following medical workers and residents and staff of long-term care facilities.
The shift in Colorado offers an early sign that prisons and jails, which hold a disproportionate share of people of color and have reported some of the most virulent coronavirus outbreaks, are creating daunting dilemmas for state leaders apportioning finite shares of the vaccine. The episode illustrates how a system of preferences geared to stop the virus where it is most destructive may clash with other values in a nation that incarcerates more people than does any other.
More broadly, the makeup of the second tier is exposing sharply different priorities across the country, with some governors bucking expert advice to focus on vulnerable workers and high-risk living settings and instead rushing shots to the elderly.
Experts advising Polis said they could not be sure why he discarded their recommendations to prioritize congregate living settings – he has not expounded on his thinking – but said they were troubled that he seemed to yield to criticism from political adversaries.
Polis spokesman Conor Cahill declined to make the governor available for an interview but issued a statement defending the state’s plan, stressing the “moral obligation” to prioritize elderly people most at risk of dying from the virus and “front-line health-care heroes” caring for the sick.
“Inmate status will not make a difference in terms of timing of receipt of the vaccine,” Cahill said. “Someone who falls into a category for early priority of the vaccine and is in custody will receive the vaccine at the same time as someone in the same category who is outside our correctional facilities.”
About a dozen states take a similar approach, according to a review of draft plans by the Prison Policy Initiative, a Massachusetts think tank. Several states, including New Jersey and Washington, have already begun vaccinating inmates. And another seven – Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New Mexico and Pennsylvania – put incarcerated people after health-care workers and the residents and staff of long-term care facilities, according to the think tank.
Plans in about half the states suggest inmates will gain access at some point ahead of the general population. But details are preliminary and subject to political winds.
“It’s a very stigmatized population, and there are people who say, ‘They’re in prison, they must have done something terrible, and they don’t deserve a place in line,’ ” said Matthew Wynia, director of the Center for Bioethics and Humanities at the University of Colorado and a member of the state’s medical advisory group. But viewing the priorities in terms of who deserves to be inoculated, he said, “might end up prolonging the pandemic and killing more people.”
Anyone making a “moralistic argument,” Wynia said, should focus more on the math – 14 of Colorado’s 15 largest outbreaks have occurred in prisons, jails or college dorms. Nationally, more than 40 of the 50 largest clustered outbreaks have occurred in jails and prisons, according to a “call for urgent action” published in the Lancet medical journal in October. Inmates live in crowded conditions and have high rates of hypertension, heart disease and other conditions linked to serious risk from covid-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus. They are disproportionately Black and Hispanic, part of communities stricken by the pandemic.
More than 7,000 people in the care of the Colorado Department of Corrections have tested positive for the virus, and the state says 14 have died. Anuj Mehta, a Denver pulmonologist who chaired the advisory group addressing vaccine prioritization, said he thought Polis was operating on a principle of “trying to save the most lives,” though he disagrees with the governor’s approach. Viral spread hardly stays within prison walls, he noted, mainly because corrections officers return to their families, often in minority and low-income communities.
For these reasons, immunization experts tapped by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to develop federal recommendations to guide state planning have highlighted the needs of incarcerated populations and people living in homeless shelters. Guidance approved recently by the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices put corrections officers in what is known as Phase 1b, along with other front-line workers and people aged 75 and older, recommending states immunize inmates at the same time or, depending on vaccine supply, in the next phase. Colorado’s plan essentially strips them from that tier.
“All these groups, in various facilities, are very vulnerable,” said Sharon Frey, a committee member and clinical director of St. Louis University’s Center for Vaccine Development.
The point was brought home in public testimony, when Joseph Bick, director of health-care services for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, told the CDC advisory group that, “Prisons are essentially long-term care facilities with bars.” California, where more than 40,000 inmates have been infected and about 130 have died, has already begun vaccinating some high-risk inmates. Officials have not yet decided how to prioritize the broader inmate population, said Ali Bay, a spokeswoman for the state health department.
A number of states place prison and jail staff ahead of inmates. Asked about the rationale for that approach, Gavin Lesnick, spokesman for the Arkansas Department of Health, said staff “come and go from the facility and into the community and may have a higher risk.” Shannon Litz, a state health department spokeswoman in Nevada, said the state considered “chance of exposure to covid-19 and the guidance provided by federal partners.”
Peter Wagner, executive director of the Prison Policy Initiative, said it was difficult to spot trends among the states putting incarcerated people near the front of the line. Connecticut, Wagner said, is a “big reformer,” but some other states pursuing significant criminal justice reform have not publicly committed to early vaccination of inmates.
In Massachusetts, the priority given to incarcerated people stems from the broader focus on congregate settings, said Paul Biddinger, medical director for emergency preparedness at Mass General Brigham and chairman of the state’s vaccine advisory group.
“Congregate settings are congregate settings, and they are high density and at risk whether they’re long-term nursing facilities or prisons,” said another committee member, Massachusetts state Sen. Cindy Friedman, a Democrat. That inmates are in such dire need of inoculation, she said, shows the failures of criminal justice in America, revealing the “extent of the breakdown and the gaps and the poor access to behavioral health care.”
But the pandemic has put vows of reform to the test.
In remarks last year before the coronavirus began spreading out of control, Polis said he would “like to see Colorado lead the nation in criminal justice reform.” He issued an executive order in March allowing the Department of Corrections to reduce the state prison population, but the rule expired in May, and he faces litigation by the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado accusing him and his corrections director of failing to protect vulnerable inmates.
Mark Silverstein, legal director of the state branch of the ACLU, said he initially thought Polis had made an error and misstated his own health department’s plan when, responding to an interview question in Spanish, he said, “Free people must receive it before incarcerated people.”
The following week, the governor reiterated his position in even stronger terms, “seemingly in response,” Silverstein noted, to the position staked out by the Republican district attorney, George Brauchler.
Brauchler said the Democratic governor had demoted inmates even more drastically than Brauchler had suggested in his Denver Post op-ed. Even though he was outraged that his elderly father might be put in line after inmates, Brauchler, 51, said he thinks people locked behind bars should gain access before he does.
InternationalJan 03. 2021Before being treated to sake, Namahage have their hands disinfected at a home in the Masugawa district of Oga, Japan, on Thursday. MUST CREDIT: Japan News-Yomiuri photo.
By Syndication Washington Post, The Japan News-Yomiuri
OGA, Japan – While not in full force, the masked ogres came out on New Year’s Eve to dispel evil and bring good auspices – after spritzing their hands with germ-killing sanitizer and donning surgical masks beneath their disguises.
The Namahage, maintaining a tradition listed as a UNESCO intangible cultural heritage, were seen making the rounds of Oga, Akita Prefecture, while taking countermeasures to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
In the custom held on Dec. 31, the Namahage admonish the lazy and guard against plague, are said to bring good harvests and good health.
According to the Oga government, of the 93 districts that normally perform the ritual, at least 48 canceled it this year because they felt they could not fully negate the risk of infection.
In the Masugawa district, a trio of Namahage were seen sanitizing their hands as they entered a house. In place of the usual sharing of complimentary sake, they drank out of paper cups they brought with them. Their calls of “Are there any crying children here?” were done in low voices.
“Even amid the pandemic, we managed to do this by taking some measures,” said a 29-year-old man who filled the role of a Namahage. “I want to keep this going next year so that the tradition is not disrupted.”
In the Okura district, the role-players put on surgical masks before putting on the Namahage masks. While they would usually be invited into houses, this time they remained in the entrance, where they performed their evil-dispelling ritual to bring a good harvest and safety to the home.
WASHINGTON – Usually, it is highly scripted pomp and circumstance. Mahogany boxes containing sealed envelopes with each state’s electoral college vote are marched into a joint session of Congress. The presiding officer opens the envelopes in alphabetical order, and House and Senate “tellers” read the results aloud. It is generally so boring that few lawmakers show up.
This year, they’ll be watching with bated breath. Will the presiding officer, Vice President Mike Pence, resist pressure from President Donald Trump and his supporters to write a new script for the proceedings?
U.S. vice presidents, in their constitutional role as president of the Senate, have long presided over the ceremonial certification of the electoral college vote count, even when it has meant turning the reins over to the opposition (see: Dick Cheney, Jan. 6, 2009; Joe Biden, Jan. 6, 2017).
In fact, two modern vice presidents have overseen the most humbling of certifications – their own election losses.
On Jan. 6, 1961, then-Vice President Richard M. Nixon became the first in a century. Massachusetts Sen. John F. Kennedy had beaten him narrowly; plus, many Republicans suspected voter fraud in 11 states, even filing lawsuits in two. (Judges threw both out.) So even though the result of the certification was supposed to be a foregone conclusion, some wondered whether Nixon would really go through with it.
He did, and according to The Washington Post’s coverage at the time, he did so jovially.
“Nixon seemed to enjoy doing it,” The Post wrote. “Time and again he pumped humor, life and even a little political sense into the nearly two-centuries-old ceremonial.”
During the joint session, he asked to make a statement, promising to follow House custom of a one-minute speech, instead of the Senate’s unlimited-time rule.
“I do not think we could have a more striking and eloquent example of the stability of our Constitutional system and of the proud tradition of the American people of developing, respecting and honoring institutions of self-government,” he said. “In our campaigns, no matter how hard-fought they may be, no matter how close the election may turn out to be, those who lose accept the verdict, and support those who win.”
He declared Kennedy the winner and received a standing ovation.
The awkward moment was handled well, but Post correspondent Robert C. Albright’s description of the electoral college system that created the situation was unsparing. Perhaps expecting it might be reformed soon, Albright called it “creaky,” “archaic,” “tired,” “no longer dependable” and “America’s outworn way of electing its presidents.”
The Senate majority leader, he reported, “was confident that one day the electoral college will retire as gracefully as Mr. Nixon did.”
Thirteen years later, Nixon retired again – this time, in disgrace. And the “creaky” old electoral system remains.
Four decades later, the country found itself in an even bigger electoral drama, when then-Vice President Al Gore had to certify Tex. Gov. George W. Bush’s win, despite Gore’s having won the popular vote. The month before, Gore had conceded to Bush after a court battle over the Florida count that went all the way to the Supreme Court.
Like Nixon in 1960, Gore tried to bring “grace and humor” to the proceedings, according to The Post’s coverage at the time. As scripted, the roll of states was called in alphabetical order, and when it reached California, which Gore won, he jokingly pumped a fist in the air.
He had “achieved celebrity status,” according to The Post’s coverage, signing autographs for the assembled lawmakers, congressional staffers and pages. Even then-Speaker J. Dennis Hastert asked Gore to autograph the wooden gavel he used that day. Like Nixon, when he declared Bush the winner – asking God to bless his opponent – Gore drew a standing ovation.
There was an extra awkward cherry on top of the day, though, when the roll reached the state of Florida and a handful of House Democrats raised objections. Most of them, including Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., were members of the Congressional Black Caucus “who share the feeling among black leaders that votes in the largely African American precincts overwhelmingly carried by Gore were not counted because of faulty voting machines, illicit challenges to black voters and other factors,” The Post said.
Because no senators signed on to the objections with the House members, Gore was bound by law to refuse to hear the objections, putting him in the position of squelching a last-ditch effort to make him president.
This Jan. 6, things are expected to proceed differently, and not just because Trump has thus far declined the take the “grace and humor” route. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., has signed on to House Republican objections, meaning that even if Pence acts according to the script, the objections will be heard.
เพื่อนบ้านอาเซียนของไทยทั้งสองประเทศจะสามารถผงาดจากวิกฤตโควิดได้ในปีนี้
เหตุการณ์นี้เกิดขึ้นในปี 2017 เมื่อวัตถุปริศนาเคลื่อนตัวเข้ามาในระบบสุริยะและสร้างความงุนงงให้กับมนุษยชาติ
การต่อต้านผลการเลือกตั้งประธานาธิบดีสหรัฐยังไม่จบไม่สิ้น ล่าสุดเกิดวิกฤตครั้งใหม่อีกแล้ว
สาธารณสุขเวียดนามรายงาน พบ หญิงกลับจากอังกฤษติดเชื้อไวรัสโควิดสายพันธุ์ใหม่เป็นรายแรกในประเทศ ชี้เป็นสายพันธุ์เดียวกับที่กำลังแพร่ระบาดในอังกฤษ
Tesla Inc. vehicles at the assembly plant in Fremont, Calif., on Aug. 13, 2020. MUST CREDIT: Bloomberg photo by David Paul Morris.
Before being treated to sake, Namahage have their hands disinfected at a home in the Masugawa district of Oga, Japan, on Thursday. MUST CREDIT: Japan News-Yomiuri photo.
