One of the sky’s brightest lights is losing its shine.

Since the start of December, the star Betelgeuse — the gleaming right shoulder of the constellation Orion — has been rapidly growing dim. Just 650 light-years from Earth, it’s usually the ninth most luminous star in the sky. Right now, it wouldn’t even break the top 20.

Betelgeuse is a “variable” star, known for wild fluctuations in its brightness, but scientists have never recorded it changing quite so fast. Such strange behavior from a beloved star has them wondering: Is this a sign that Betelgeuse is about to explode?

Astronomers know that day is bound to come. Betelgeuse is at least 15 times more massive than the sun and wide enough that, if we moved it to our solar system, it would extend past the orbit of Jupiter. “Supergiants” like this tend to live fast and die young, and Betelgeuse’s red color indicates that it has already moved to one of the last stages of a star’s life: fusing helium atoms into ever-heavier elements, which it occasionally spews into space. The carbon in your cells and the oxygen in your lungs was made this way, borne across the universe on the sighs of a dying sun.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2019/12/27/is-betelgeuse-one-skys-brightest-stars-brink-supernova/

https://climatechangedispatch.com/firebugs-behind-destructive-queensland-fires/

Almost 100 firebugs have deliberately started blazes across Queensland that have destroyed homes and consumed thousands of hectares of bushland.

Some 65 fires continue to burn across the state on Friday, jumping from 55 reported on Thursday, as the fire threat deepens heading into the weekend.

As firefighters remain on high alert, police revealed 103 of the destructive fires that have lashed Queensland since September were deliberately lit.


Figures obtained by AAP reveal 98 people – 31 adults and 67 juveniles – have been dealt with by Queensland police for deliberately setting fires.

A 16-year-old boy was found to have started a fire that razed 14 homes in central Queensland and dealt with under the state’s Youth Justice Act.
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I hope they arrest them all and hand out severe punishments.

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/474777-sanders-surges-ahead-of-iowa-caucuses

While I am a supporter of senator Warren, Sanders keeps surprising me.
I still don't understand why he never registered as a democrat, while he runs as one and caucuses with the democratic party.

There aren’t 20 Senate Republicans with enough integrity to remove the most corrupt president in American history, so we’re going to have to get rid of Trump the old-fashioned way – by electing a Democrat next 3 November.

That Democrat will be Warren Sanders.

Although there are differences between Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, I’m putting them together for the purpose of making a simple point.

Read more at:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/dec/15/donald-trump-democrats-elizabeth-warren-bernie-sanders