"The last star will slowly cool and fade away. With its passing, the Universe will become once more a void, without light or life or meaning."
So warned the physicist Brian Cox in the recent BBC series Universe. The fading of that last star will only be the beginning of an infinitely long, dark epoch. All matter will eventually be consumed by monstrous black holes, which in their turn will evaporate away into the dimmest glimmers of light. //

let's take a look at how "material" – physical matter – first came about. If we are aiming to explain the origins of stable matter made of atoms or molecules, there was certainly none of that around at the Big Bang – nor for hundreds of thousands of years afterwards.

Reason is no longer a viable tactic against the union cabal. It’s time for some brutal honesty, and honestly speaking, the Chicago Teachers Union is nothing more than the mafia dressed up as an advocacy group. The difference is that the traditional mafia didn’t take hits out on children; that was the one group of people that were off limits, because even the traditional mafia has some type of principle. The teachers unions are completely devoid of principles at this point. They are willing to take out an entire generation just to satisfy their own greed.

These criminals voted in the dead of night – on a school night – to cancel classes…immediately. Unsuspecting parents woke up to the news that there would be no school for their children on Wednesday. Talk about a punch to the gut. Happy New Year.

“One of the implications of being such a coal-dependent state is that when those coal plants retire, it presents a whole host of opportunities for new generation for utilities,” Jesse Kharbanda, executive director of the Hoosier Environmental Council, told Grist. “Utilities simply need to find a way to replace the 9,000 megawatts of predominantly coal-fired power that has been retired over the last 15 years. They have come to the conclusion that they’re better off investing in renewables and gas.”

For the small rural counties playing host to these new solar facilities, it often simply comes down to the money. That was the case with the Mammoth Solar facility in Starke and Pulaski counties. The tax revenue from the 1.65-gigawatt project will account for nearly one-fifth of each of their annual budgets. And for many landowners, the payments they will receive from Doral Renewables will be more than they make farming the land or leasing it themselves. Landowners can expect to receive between $600 and $1,000 per acre per year that they lease out for solar panels.

'It is surprising that animals like meerkats, marmots and ground squirrels have high levels of mortality' caused by their own species, scientist says

Venmo, PayPal and Cash App will now have to report transactions totaling more than $600 to the IRS as Biden plans to ramp up financial enforcement //

The new reporting requirement will ensure that small businesses that receive payments through those apps are paying their fair share in taxes on them
Beginning Jan. 1, 2022, third-party payment processors were required to report such transactions
The changes will be included during the 2022 tax season
The payment apps were previously required to send users 1099-K forms if their gross income exceeded $20,000 or had more than 200 transactions per year //

The new rule is only for goods and services transactions, not personal, such as paying a roommate for rent or reimbursing a friend. It also excludes anyone selling a personal item at a loss, such as a couch bought for $700 and sold for $650. //

The new tax rule is separate from a proposed IRS reporting requirement that originally would have handed over transaction data on accounts with more than $600 aggregate inflow and outflow. That proposal, originally part of President Biden's Build Back Better plan, was raised to a $10,000 threshold after much pushback, and has not yet been acted on by Congress.