Here are the top stories for this week all summarized so you can stay informed and save time!
All sources are at the end of the post.
Biden signs funding bill after Congress averts government shutdown:
Fencing in front of the Capitol on Sept. 7.Eric Lee / Bloomberg via Getty Images file
On Friday, President Joe Biden signed a funding bill to keep the government running through Dec. 16 into law, just barely meeting the deadline to avert a shutdown. This legislation was passed by the House earlier in the day as a final act of business before both chambers of Congress recess for six weeks until the midterm election. The bill acts as a temporary measure giving congressional leaders additional time to negotiate a full-year funding deal. The legislation also includes a defense authorization bill, a package of changes to election laws, $12 billion in assistance to Ukraine, money for Afghan refugees, enhanced security for US courts, and a five-year reauthorization of user fees for the Food and Drug Administration. The bill highlighted a split in Republican leadership as House Republican leaders pressured their members to vote against the legislation while Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was supportive of it. This suggests that must-pass funding measures could get contentious if Republicans capture the House this fall.
Defiant Putin proclaims Ukrainian annexation as military setback looms:
Law enforcement officers stand guard as people walk towards Red Square to attend events marking the annexation of the Russian-controlled territories of four Ukraine's Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, September 30, 2022. REUTERS/REUTERS PHOTOGRAPHER
Vladimir Putin proclaimed Russia's annexation of a swathe of Ukraine in a Kremlin ceremony, promising Moscow would triumph in its "special military operation" even as he faced a potentially serious new military reversal. This annexation is based on the results of Russian referendums, which were denounced by Kyiv and Western governments as illegal and coercive. Russia officially claims 15% of Ukraine’s total territory, the biggest annexation in Europe since World War Two. Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskiy responded by saying his country had submitted a fast-track application to join the NATO military alliance and that he would not hold peace talks with Russia while Putin was still president. This comes as Russian forces in the eastern Donetsk region are nearly surrounded by Ukrainian troops. Ukraine said it had all the supply routes to the Russian stronghold in the crosshairs of its artillery in the east, and told Moscow it would have to appeal to Kyiv if it wanted its forces to be allowed out. The encirclement could leave Ukrainian forces an open path to seize more territory in Luhansk and Donetsk provinces, captured earlier in some of the war's bitterest fighting.
Youth Crime in the U.S. Has Plummeted 78% Since 1994, Which Counters the Usual Narrative:
A recent report found that the number of youth arrests for violent crime continued to decline in 2020 and was down 78% from its peak in 1994. Analysis of the data from the FBI found that people aged 17 and younger accounted for just 7% of all arrests for violent crime like murder and robbery in 2020. Law enforcement agencies made an estimated 424,300 arrests of youth in 2020, a 38% drop from the previous year and half the number from five years earlier. 8% were for a violent crime. One-fourth of one percent was for murder. The proportion of violent crime arrests involving youth has declined over the last decade for each offense category, dropping by half from 2010, when youth accounted for 14% of all violent crime arrests. The decline in youth arrests for violent crime over the last 10 years also far outpaced the drop in adult arrests. Youth arrests for violent crime fell by 56% while adult arrests decreased by just 6%. The rate of serious violent victimizations against youth, which includes robbery, rape/sexual assault, and aggravated assault, also declined substantially from 2019 to 2020.
Incredible 3D Rendering from Jupiter Spacecraft Reveals “Frosted Cupcake” Clouds:
Jupiter clouds rendered-from JunoCam.
After the Juno spacecraft used 3D rendering to process some images it took of clouds covering Jupiter, they appeared like frosted cupcakes. Juno arrived at Jupiter on July 4th, 2016, after a 5-year, 1.7-billion-mile journey, and settled into a 53-day polar orbit stretching from just above Jupiter’s cloud tops to the outer reaches of the Jovian magnetosphere. Put on board initially to increase public engagement around the exploration of Jupiter and its moons, Eichstätd has demonstrated that JunoCam can also provide valuable science. Understanding the relative heights of the spiky pillars within the swirls will help scientists to unveil in more detail the elements that compose them. Furthermore, JunoCam’s renderings came in the visible-light spectrum, so the animations of the relative heights of the cloud tops in our solar system’s largest planet are exactly as we would see them. The results have been presented by a citizen scientist, professional mathematician, and software developer, Gerald Eichstädt, at the Europlanet Science Congress (EPSC) 2022 in Granada. The pictures from Juno have been some of the most awe-inspiring to ever come out of observations in space, and the colors, patterns, and textures of the Jovian atmosphere surmount the creativity of even the most excitable painter.
Sources: