SpaceX has put together a bloopers video showing “How NOT to land an orbital rocket booster.”

Set to John Philip Sousa’s rousing march “The Liberty Bell,” the two-minute video posted Thursday shows rockets exploding at sea and over land. The opening blast, from 2013, is even synchronized to the music.

SpaceX chief Elon Musk can afford to poke fun at his early, pioneering efforts at rocket recycling, now that his private company has pulled off 16 successful booster landings. The most recent occurred last week in Florida.

“We messed up a lot before it finally worked, but there’s some epic explosion footage,” Musk said recently on Twitter.

In one video shot, Musk looks over a rocket’s charred remains with the caption: “It’s just a scratch.” After another huge fiery explosion, this one on the company’s barge, the caption reads: “Well, technically, it did land … just not in one piece.”

Musk tweeted Thursday that when the Falcon rocket’s upper stage and the cargo enclosure can also be retrieved and reused, launch costs will drop by a factor of more than 100.

For now, SpaceX’s first-stage boosters- 15 stories tall – separate shortly after liftoff and fly back to Cape Canaveral Air Force Station or an ocean platform for a vertical touchdown. Until the company’s recovery efforts – unique among rocket makers launching spacecraft into orbit – these segments were discarded at sea. A couple of these recycled rockets already have launched a second time.

The video ends with scenes of the first successful booster touchdown at Cape Canaveral in 2015 and the first one on an ocean platform in 2016.

“The Liberty Bell” march was the theme music for the old “Monty Python” comedy TV series.
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More than 50 local and national charities have raised more than $350 million in the nearly three weeks since Hurricane Harvey struck the Texas Gulf Coast, and the disparate groups are trying to decide on priorities while some storm victims still await help.

Distrust of large charities such as the American Red Cross has driven many donors to smaller, local organizations. For instance, Houston Texans football star J.J. Watt has raised more than $30 million for his foundation, an effort he started by posting appeals on social media.

One donor to Watt’s effort, Helen Vasquez, stood outside the Texans’ stadium and said she had seen a Facebook post listing the salaries of executives at top national charities. She gave Watt $20 instead.

“It’s all going to the people itself and not to the corporations, not the higher-ups in the corporations,” Vasquez said.

But most of the money raised for Harvey has gone to the Red Cross, which has raised a least $211 million. The rest went to other organizations, including 40 groups listed by Charity Navigator, as well as dozens of other groups and individual families raising money on do-it-yourself sites such as GoFundMe.

More than $50 million has poured into the local fund set up by Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner and Harris County Judge Ed Emmett, the county’s chief administrative official.

Turner and Emmett openly urge donors to give to the local fund and not the Red Cross, saying doing so will ensure the best use of the money.

Emmett has blamed the Red Cross for problems that arose with setting up and running the emergency shelters used by tens of thousands of people who were flooded out of their homes.

The Greater Houston Community Foundation, which the men have asked to administer the fund, is creating a 12-member board and a grant committee to set priorities and distribute donations starting in the next several weeks. The foundation is working with the United Way and dozens of other charities, but so far not with the Red Cross or with Watt, who did not respond to questions sent through a spokesman for the Texans.

David Brady, CEO of the Red Cross of the Texas Gulf Coast, said his group would be “happy to be a part of all conversations” and that the Red Cross would review how it could improve its shelter operations in the future.

“We can’t take the criticisms personally,” he said.

The foundation’s CEO, Stephen Maislin, said it will pay the costs of running the Harvey relief fund on its own, including the credit card fees banks charge for donations.

The charities are still weighing the best ways to use the money and setting up systems to monitor where the money goes. Veterans of other major disasters, such as Hurricane Katrina and Superstorm Sandy, say coordination between groups is critical to make the most out of every dollar.

Reese May, national director of recovery for the home rebuilding group SBP, said local leaders need to bridge the gaps between the dozens of groups by setting clear goals.

“When there is aggressive leadership, when there are aggressive goals that are publicly set, it plants the flag,” May said. “It gives neighbors the opportunity to connect with one another, saying, ‘Absolutely, we’re going to make it back from this.'”

Among the most critical needs is figuring out housing for thousands of people who are still living in emergency shelters, many of whom are not eligible for federal assistance. Others lost everything in their homes, and some people are living in gutted homes flooded by sewage because they have nowhere else to go.

The people involved in fundraising say they must move quickly and coordinate with each other.

“I’m praying we can stretch it,” said Anna Babin, head of the United Way of Greater Houston, which is already issuing grants to people needing help with rent and lost vehicles and cleaning out flooded homes. “But this is so significant.”

As the Texans played their first game of the season Sunday, around 1,900 evacuees were inside the NRG Center, the convention center across the street from the stadium. Thousands of NFL fans were tailgating in nearby parking lots, and smoke from sausages and chicken on the grill rose in the air.

Estella Martin and several other people said they wanted answers from the groups raising money on their behalf.

“They got enough to put every one of the people that are still here in a home or an apartment and help them out until they get up on their feet,” Martin said. “Instead, they’ve got us here.”
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The Northland area of Columbus, Ohio was booming in the 1960s and 70s. About 65 square kilometers, the area was a shopping and dining destination. Its centerpiece was the Northland Mall on Morse Road.

“You couldn’t get a parking space at the mall at Christmas time,” Dave Cooper, president of the Northland Area Business Association, told Columbusalive.com.

In the early 2000s, the area fell on hard times. Retailers began to desert the mall – Columbus’s oldest – for newer shopping centers and in 2002, Northland Mall closed, ushering the whole Morse Road corridor into a period of increasing crime and vacant storefronts.

The city of Columbus went into action, creating special commissions and offering tax incentives. But when help arrived, it came from an unexpected quarter.

As the old mall was closing, immigrants and refugees were opening up small shops and restaurants along Morse Road. A group of Somali refugees opened Global Mall just five blocks away, offering new space opportunities for startup entrepreneurs. Part shopping center, part community gathering place, Global Mall today hosts all sorts of businesses.

And Global was just the beginning of what has become a corridor of immigrant and refugee businesses along Morse Road.

“Some refugees or some immigrants have great business skills. So they got into the business without help of the government … and they flourished,” says Somali business owner Ahmed O. Haji.  

Saraga Grocery

“I bought ramen noodles and extra hot peppers. I like the fact that there is a big variety from all different places around the world,” says Ron Kosa, a customer at the Saraga International Grocery, which is located in a former Toys R Us building on Morse Road.

Korean immigrant John Sung opened the 5,000 square-meter grocery four years ago.

“We have products from five continents, Africa, Asia, South America, Europe all over the world basically,” Sung says, adding that his 80 employees are similarly from all over the world.

In addition to selling groceries, Saraga provides space for individual merchants, hosting a halal butcher, a Mexican bakery and a Nepali food stand among others.

Jubba Value Center Mall

About two kilometers away from Saraga grocery is Jubba Value Center Mall where Somali refugees and immigrants have small shops and help each other bring in new customers. Columbus has the second largest Somali community in the U.S. after Minneapolis, MN.

“Morse Road is a very strategic location,” says Haji who started the Jubba Travel agency nine years ago. “It’s one of the highest revenue generated ZIP codes in Columbus.  It’s a great location. Morse has very diverse ethnic people that live in this area.”

The influx of refugees and immigrants kept the population of the Northland area from declining in the first years of the new millennium.

From 2007 to 2012, immigrant entrepreneurship rose citywide by 41.5%.  Native born entrepreneurship declined by 1.2 percent during the same time period.

“Based on a recent study, we could account for over 900 businesses that were opened specifically by the refugee community,” said Guadalupe Velasquez, Assistant Director of the Department of Neighborhoods for the city of Columbus. “And they then in turn employ over 23,000 individuals.”

The total contribution of refugees to the city’s economy is $1.6 billion, Velasquez added.

Travel Agency

 “I did not have an incentive move or any advice from the city,” says Haji about opening his travel agency.

“What drove me to start the business was the need for my immigrant people predominantly Somali people who are going back home. And the means of transportation is an airline. So I thought that was a lucrative business to get into.”

Since the president’s executive order limiting travel from six countries, including Somalia, took effect in June, Haji says his business has declined dramatically. But he will keep at it.

“The city is very welcoming. Columbus, I’ve been here for almost 21 years now, and I am not going to go anywhere else.”
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The United States is responding to Russian propaganda with new media efforts aimed at countering “Kremlin distortions” with objective news, Broadcasting Board of Governors CEO John Lansing told a Senate panel.

Lansing said Thursday he has seen a “global explosion of propaganda and lies,” and said the government agency he oversees is now actively countering that disinformation with facts. BBG is the parent organization for VOA and other broadcast entities.

Lansing detailed BBG efforts to counter Russian disinformation by reaching Russian speakers around the world. Specifically, Lansing mentioned “Current Time,” a Russian-language news network, which, according to a promo video played by Lansing, “helps viewers tell fact from fiction.”

WATCH: Lansing on countering Russian propaganda

“The Russian strategy seeks to destroy the very idea of an objective, verifiable set of facts,” Lansing said. “The BBG is adapting to meet this challenge head on by offering audiences and alternatives to Russian disinformation in the form of objective, independent and professional news and information.”

He said “Current Time” documentaries have been viewed by more than 300 million people between January and July of this year, with about half the views coming from inside Russia.

Election meddling

Russian propaganda efforts have come under scrutiny by multiple investigations into Russia’s attempt to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election and elections in Europe.

Senator Cory Gardner called the U.S. response to Russian aggression in Ukraine and its use of misinformation during the 2016 presidential election “feeble” and said the U.S. needs to do more to combat Russia’s “aggressive interference in Western elections.”

“We must not let Russian activities go with impunity, we must identify and combat them utilizing every tool at our disposal,” Gardner said.

BBG has also launched a new project called “Polygraph,” which Lansing said serves as a fact-checking service to “call out Kremlin distortions.”

The project consists of teams of journalists who “analyze quotes, stories, and reports distributed by government officials, government-sponsored media and other high-profile individuals,” the website says.

One thing the BBG doesn’t do, though, is “propaganda,” Lansing said.

“Our content is protected by a legislative firewall that prevents the U.S. government interfering into our editorial decision-making. And that’s important to understand,” he said.

 
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U.S. human rights groups are suing the federal government over warrantless searches of phones and computers at the U.S. border.

The American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation announced Wednesday that they have filed a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security on behalf of 10 American citizens and one U.S. permanent resident whose smartphones and laptops were searched without warrants.

Several, but not all, of those named in the suit are Muslims. One of them said he was physically restrained while being questioned. None of them have been accused of wrongdoing.

The lawsuit calls for stricter legal guidelines for searches of electronic devices.

“People now store their whole lives, including extremely sensitive personal and business matters, on their phones, tablets and laptops, and it’s reasonable for them to carry these with them when they travel,” said EFF Staff Attorney Sophia Cope in a statement.

“It’s high time that the courts require the government to stop treating the border as a place where they can end-run the Constitution.”

The suit says the number of such searches has grown sharply in recent years and will likely hit 30,000 this year, compared with 8,503 in 2015 and 19,033 in 2016.

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency, which conducts the searches at airports and U.S. borders, says the increase is driven by its mission “to protect the American people and enforce the nation’s laws in this digital age.”

But the rights organizations say that argument doesn’t hold water. 

“The government cannot use the border as a dragnet to search through our private data,” ACLU attorney Esha Bhandari said in a statement.

“The Fourth Amendment (of the U.S. Constitution which protects against unreasonable searches) requires that the government get a warrant before it can search the contents of smartphones and laptops at the border.”
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President Donald Trump has blocked the acquisition of a U.S. computer chip manufacturer by a Chinese company, calling it a threat to national security.

The Chinese-owned Canyon Bridge Fund has sought to take over Oregon-based Lattice Semiconductor Corp.

The U.S. Treasury Department, acting under Trump’s orders, said Wednesday it is prohibiting the deal. It says the president determined that it would put national security at risk and that negotiations would not reduce that risk.

“The national security risk posed by the transaction relates to, among other things, the potential transfer of intellectual property to the foreign acquirer…the importance of semiconductor supply chain integrity to the U.S. government, and the use of Lattice products by the U.S. government.”

Trump acted after both Lattice and Canyon Bridge lobbied the administration hard to allow the deal to go thorough.

China has not yet reacted to the Treasury’s announcement. Trump has vowed to crack down on what he says are unfair Chinese trade practices, including alleged intellectual property theft.

The administration’s perception that China is failing to put enough pressure on North Korea to end its nuclear program has also put a strain in ties between Washington and Beijing.
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