Rural men in China say they're too poor to afford the massive dowries expected of them. People on social media say it's just an excuse.

Matthew Loh
Mon, March 25, 2024 at 8:40 PM MDT·5 min read
112


A report about a rural bachelor who can't afford a $70,000 dowry in China was met with backlash on Monday.


Such a bridal price is many times over what a typical rural worker earns in a year.


But people on social media say men who fixate on expensive dowries are simply not desirable partners.

A Chinese state media report about rural men struggling to afford exorbitant dowries has triggered backlash online from people who say the bachelors are missing the point.

State-run outlet Legal Daily published an article on Monday covering the dating lives of three rural men in their early 30s, who said they can no longer keep up with rising "betrothal prices."

The story of one man from Jiangxi province, whom Legal Daily gave the pseudonym Cheng Wei, went viral on Weibo, China's version of X.

According to state media, the man "lamented" that dowries in his home region had grown to about 500,000 RMB, or $70,000 — a nearly impossible cost for a rural worker.

"500,000 RMB is a very unrealistic expectation. To put things in perspective, the annual disposable per capita income among rural residents in China is about 20,000 RMB," Mu Zheng, a professor of sociology and anthropology at the National University of Singapore, told Business Insider.

Such a dowry would likely cost rural families years of savings or could sink them in debt, Mu said.

But instead of drawing sympathy, the report received a harsh response on Weibo. Many accounts, who listed themselves as female on their profiles, say men are using the unattainable dowries as an excuse for their undesirability as partners.

"Always discussing the dowry, and not discussing what the man is like, or what the bride's family must pay," one top comment said.

"Then don't get married. No one wants to marry you if you have no money," a blogger, who listed themselves as female, wrote.

As of Monday afternoon Beijing time, the topic received some 32 million views on Weibo, per data seen by BI.

In China, grooms typically pay for dowries to the bride's family and can sometimes be expected to fork up the cash for huge expenses like cars or houses as a prerequisite.

Some urban couples in China are now going for what is often dubbed a "naked marriage," where people get hitched without the man first securing the dowry, car, apartment, or perhaps even a diamond ring. But the traditional practice of paying for your bride is still strong in rural areas, Mu said.

"The expectation for dowries has diverged in China due to both the rising costs of living — particularly with housing — consumerism, and rising individualism," she said.
It's not about the dowries, people say

Rising dowries have unsettled Chinese officials already fretting about plummeting national birth and marriage rates. The state frequently discourages families from demanding exorbitant betrothal agreements, in a bid to remove another obstacle to marriage.

Yet the prevailing perspective on Chinese social media has been that fixating on surging dowry expectations is distracting from the real issue — that modern women want to wed for love and a stable future but are pressured to shore up marriage rates.

In essence: A man who relies on a dowry likely doesn't make the cut, and women shouldn't be expected to marry him.

"If you don't believe me, tell a handsome guy to go on a blind date. I guarantee that someone will marry him even without a dowry, and even give birth to monkeys for him," wrote one commenter, who listed themselves as female.

"Nowadays, independent urban women live freely and self-sufficiently, while older youths in rural areas want to get married," another wrote. "The two don't match up, so there's a severe gap."

"It's not a question of whether the betrothal gift is good," one commenter added. "It's a matter of not finding a suitable marriage partner. If it's clear there's no good match, why persist?"

The furor could partially stem from repeated messaging from provincial governments that affluent city women should return to their home villages to marry rural bachelors. These campaigns sometimes go viral and get slammed on social media.

Meanwhile, it's become increasingly clear that officials are concerned by the growing prevalence of singlehood among rural men, with state media often discussing such bachelors leading loveless lives. Local governments have been concocting various policies and incentives to encourage marriage in poorer areas.

The divide is widening between marriage expectations held by Chinese women and those placed on them, Mu said.

"They demand better quality marriage, and are more likely to decide to get married when they feel it's right," she said. Meanwhile, many families in China still expect the wife to be the primary caregiver and homemaker.

In the case of the dowry backlash, China is seeing more women refusing to take responsibility for fixing the nation's population woes, she said.

"Increasingly, they don't feel incentivized or that it's emotionally and morally right to get married for the sake of marriage, or in this case, to address the imbalanced marriage markets," she said.

High school teacher and students sue over Arkansas' ban on critical race theory

ANDREW DeMILLO
Updated Mon, March 25, 2024 


 Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signs an education overhaul bill into law, March 8, 2023, at the state Capitol in Little Rock, Ark. On Monday, March 25, 2024, a high school teacher and two students sued Arkansas over the state's ban on critical race theory and “indoctrination” in public schools, asking a federal judge to strike down the restrictions as unconstitutional. 

(AP Photo/Andrew DeMillo, File)

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — A high school teacher and two students sued Arkansas on Monday over the state's ban on critical race theory and “indoctrination” in public schools, asking a federal judge to strike down the restrictions as unconstitutional.

The lawsuit by the teacher and students from Little Rock Central High School, site of the historic 1957 racial desegregation crisis, stems from the state's decision last year that an Advanced Placement course on African American Studies would not count toward state credit.

The lawsuit argues the restrictions, which were among a number of education changes that Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed into law last year, violate free speech protections under the First Amendment and the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

“It absolutely chills free speech” and “discriminates on the basis of race,” the lawsuit said.

“Indeed, defendants’ brazen attack on full classroom participation for all students in 2024 is reminiscent of the state’s brazen attack on full classroom participation for all students in 1957,” the lawsuit said.

Arkansas and other Republican-led states in recent years have placed restrictions on how race is taught in the classroom, including prohibitions on critical race theory, an academic framework dating to the 1970s that centers on the idea that racism is embedded in the nation’s institutions. The theory is not a fixture of K-12 education, and Arkansas' ban does not define what would be considered critical race theory. The lawsuit argues that the definition the law uses for prohibited indoctrination is overly broad and vague.

Tennessee educators filed a similar lawsuit last year challenging that state's sweeping bans on teaching certain concepts of race, gender and bias in classroom.

Arkansas' restrictions mirror an executive order Sanders signed on her first day in office last year. The Republican governor defended the law and criticized the lawsuit.

“In the state of Arkansas, we will not indoctrinate our kids and teach them to hate America or each other,” Sanders said in a statement. “It’s sad the radical left continues to lie and play political games with our kids’ futures.”

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis blocked high schools in his state from teaching the AP African American Studies course. The College Board released the latest updated framework for the course in December, months after initial revisions prompted criticism the nonprofit was bowing to conservative backlash to the class.

Arkansas education officials last year said the AP African American studies class couldn’t be part of the state’s advanced placement course offerings because it’s still a pilot program and hasn’t been vetted by the state yet to determine whether it complied with the law.

Central High and the five other schools offering the class said they would continue doing so as a local elective. The class still counts toward a student's GPA.

The lawsuit is the second challenge against Sanders' LEARNS Act, which also created a new school voucher program. The Arkansas Supreme Court in October rejected a challenge to the law that questioned the Legislature's procedural vote that allowed it to take effect immediately.

"The LEARNS Act has brought much-needed reforms to Arkansas. I have successfully defended (the law) from challenges before, and I am prepared to vigorously defend it again,” Republican Attorney General Tim Griffin said.

African American Studies students sue over Arkansas LEARNS Act ‘indoctrination’ section

Neale Zeringue

KARK
Mon, March 25, 2024 

African American Studies students sue over Arkansas LEARNS Act ‘indoctrination’ section


LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – The Arkansas LEARNS Act is being challenged in federal court by students and a teacher in the Little Rock School District and the state officials are not backing down.

Across the street from the historic Central High School Monday, the plaintiffs called section 16 of the law prohibiting “indoctrination” in Arkansas Schools unconstitutional and asked the court to immediately stop the state from enforcing it.

Arkansas public school students no longer receiving AMI days; how this is impacted by LEARNS Act

The law caused uncertainty for students taking AP African American Studies days before the 2023-2024 school year started because it was pulled from the course code before the course framework was altered to exclude critical race theory and address concerns in themes like “intersections of identity” and “resistance and resilience”.

“This course is just a way for me to learn another perspective,” Sadie Belle Reynolds argued.

Reynolds, a plaintiff and Central High School freshman taking AP African American Studies, is one of five plaintiffs including her mother, a classmate and her mother and the teacher of AP African American Studies Ruthie Walls.

“If we don’t be very careful, we’ll end up in the same awkward position we were years ago, and we have people to stand up and say no,” Walls said.

She and other plaintiffs in a 56-page lawsuit claim the LEARNS Act section on “Indoctrination” which calls out “Critical Race Theory” violates the First Amendment protections of free speech and the Fourteenth Amendment protections of equal protection under the law.

In a statement Monday Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders responded to the lawsuit.

“In the State of Arkansas, we will not indoctrinate our kids and teach them to hate America or each other,” she said. “It’s sad the radical left continues to lie and play political games with our kids’ futures.”

Arkansas Education Secretary sends letter to 5 school districts concerning AP African American Studies

Jennifer Reynolds, plaintiff, mother of a student taking African American Studies, said the class her daughter attends fosters understanding not division.

“I don’t really understand what is the boogeyman in all of this and what is the fear of the indoctrination,” Reynolds said.

Part of the lawsuit is for damages. Mike Laux, one of the attorneys representing the teacher, students, and parents said the state is not covering the almost $100 final exam fee that it does for other AP classes.

Arkansas Department of Education Secretary Jacob Oliva called some accusations of the lawsuit “a total lie.”

“The lawsuit falsely accuses ADE of not allowing students to participate in the AP African American Studies pilot program and stripped them from the benefits that the course provides – a total lie. The department advised schools they could offer local course credit to students who complete the pilot, and six schools participated. After discussions, College Board updated course framework and assured it does not violate Arkansas law. The department approved the course for the 24-25 school year and will continue to work with districts to ensure courses offered to students do not violate Arkansas state law.”

ADE Secretary Jacob Oliva

Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin also chimed in through a statement.

“The LEARNS Act has brought much-needed reforms to Arkansas,” Griffin said. “I have successfully defended it from challenges before, and I am prepared to vigorously defend it again.”

Sadie Belle Reynolds attended school growing up in Africa and South America, where she was a minority white student. She said learning what people did in the past upholding slavery and preventing civil rights hasn’t shamed her or lessened her love of America. This law has struck a nerve though.

“It makes me like aggravated and confused on why someone would want to cover up someone’s perspective in a story and history, true history and it makes you think and not repeat the same problems in the future,” she said.

Confusion over AP African American Studies class in Arkansas on first day of school

The case will be heard in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas Central Division. No court dates have been set. A motion for preliminary injunction will be filed within the week to accelerate the process according to Laux.

READ THE FULL COMPLAINT

He claims some of the students’ speeches in class could broach the critical race theory topic so he is asking for a clear answer before then.

A decade of documenting more than 63,000 migrant deaths shows that fleeing is more lethal than ever

RENATA BRITO and KERSTIN SOPKE
Tue, March 26, 2024 
 

BERLIN (AP) — More than a decade ago, the death of 600 migrants and refugees in two Mediterranean shipwrecks near Italian shores shocked the world and prompted the U.N. migration agency to start recording the number of people who died or went missing as they fled conflict, persecution or poverty to other countries.

Governments around the world have repeatedly pledged to save migrants' lives and fight smugglers while tightening borders. Yet 10 years on, a report by the International Organization for Migration's Missing Migrants Project published Tuesday shows the world is no safer for people on the move.

On the contrary, migrant deaths have soared.

Since tracking began in 2014, more than 63,000 have died or are missing and presumed dead, according to the Missing Migrants Project, with 2023 the deadliest year yet.

“The figures are quite alarming,” Jorge Galindo, a spokesperson at IOM's Global Data Institute, told The Associated Press. "We see that 10 years on, people continue to lose their lives in search of a better one.”

The report says the deaths are "likely only a fraction of the actual number of lives lost worldwide” because of the difficulty in obtaining and verifying information. For example, on the Atlantic route from Africa's west coast to Spain's Canary Islands, entire boats have reportedly vanished in what are known as “invisible shipwrecks.” Similarly, countless deaths in the Sahara desert are believed to go unreported.

Even when deaths are recorded, more than two-thirds of the victims remain unidentified. That can be due to lack of information and resources, or simply because identifying dead migrants is not considered a priority.

Experts have called the growing number of unidentified migrants around the world a crisis comparable to mass casualties seen in wartime.

Behind each nameless death is a family facing “the psychological, social, economic and legal impacts of unresolved disappearances,” a painful phenomenon known as “ambiguous loss,” the report says.

“Governments need to work together with civil society to make sure that the families that are left behind, not knowing the whereabouts of their loved ones, can have better access to the remains of people who have died,” Galindo said.

Of the victims whose nationalities were known to IOM, one in three died while fleeing countries in conflict.

Nearly 60% of the deaths recorded by the IOM in the last decade were related to drowning. The Mediterranean Sea is the world's largest migrant grave with more than 28,000 deaths recorded in the last decade. Thousands of drownings have also been recorded on the U.S.-Mexico border, in the Atlantic Ocean, in the Gulf of Aden and increasingly in the Bay of Bengal and Andaman Sea where desperate Rohingya refugees are embarking on overcrowded boats.

“Search and rescue capacities to assist migrants at sea must be strengthened, in line with international law and the principle of humanity,” the report says.

Currently on the Mediterranean "the large majority of search and rescue is done by nongovernmental organizations,” Galindo said.

When the Missing Migrants Project began in 2014, European sentiment was more sympathetic to the plight of migrants, and the Italian government had launched “Mare Nostrum,” a major search-and-rescue mission that saved thousands of lives.

But the solidarity didn't last, and European search and rescue missions were progressively cut back after fears that they would encourage smugglers to launch even more people on cheaper and deadlier boats. That's when NGOs stepped in.

Their help has not always been welcomed. In Italy and Greece, they have faced increasing bureaucratic and legal obstacles.

Following the 2015-2016 migration crisis, the European Union began outsourcing border control and sea rescues to North African countries to “save lives” while also keeping migrants from reaching European shores.

The controversial partnerships have been criticized by human rights advocates, particularly the one with Libya. EU-trained and funded Libyan coast guards have been linked to human traffickers exploiting migrants who are intercepted and brought back to squalid detention centers. A U.N.-backed group of experts has found that the abuses committed against migrants on the Mediterranean and in Libya may amount to crimes against humanity.

Despite the rise of border walls and heightened surveillance worldwide, smugglers always seem to find lucrative alternatives, leading migrants and refugees on longer and more perilous routes.

“There’s an absence of safe migration options,” Galindo said. "And this needs to change.”

___

Brito reported from Barcelona, Spain.

___

Follow AP’s coverage of migration issues at https://apnews.com/hub/migration

Migration Global Deaths
Piles of life jackets used by refugees and migrants to cross the Aegean sea from the Turkish coast remain stacked on the northeastern Greek island of Lesbos, on Wednesday, Dec. 16, 2015. The UN migration agency marks a decade since the launch of the Missing Migrants Project, documenting more than 63,000 deaths around the world. More than two-thirds of victims remain unidentified highlighting the size of the crisis and the suffering of families who rarely receive definitive answers. 

(AP Photo/Santi Palacios, File)
ASSOCIATED PRESSMore

Musk's X Corp loses lawsuit against hate speech watchdog

Updated Mon, March 25, 2024 

'X' logo is seen on the top of the messaging platform X, formerly known as Twitter


By Jonathan Stempel

(Reuters) -A U.S. judge on Monday threw out Elon Musk's lawsuit against a nonprofit group that faulted him for allowing a rise in hate speech on his social media platform X, formerly Twitter.

U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer in San Francisco said it was "evident" that Musk's X Corp sued the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) because he didn't like its criticism, and thought its research would hurt X's image and scare advertisers away.


"X Corp has brought this case in order to punish CCDH for CCDH publications that criticized X Corp--and perhaps in order to dissuade others who might wish to engage in such criticism," Breyer wrote.

"It is impossible to read the complaint and not conclude that X Corp is far more concerned about CCDH's speech than it is its data collection methods," he added.

X, in a statement, said it plans to appeal.

The decision is a blow to Musk, the world's third-richest person, who has for many years styled himself as a free-speech champion.

But since paying $44 billion for Twitter in October 2022, he has faced wide criticism for firing too many people who policed misinformation, and from civil rights groups for allowing more harmful and abusive posts.

Imran Ahmed, chief executive of the Center for Countering Digital Hate, in a statement said Breyer's decision affirms his group's right "to hold accountable social media companies for decisions they make behind closed doors."

Roberta Kaplan, a lawyer for the nonprofit, said the decision shows that Musk "cannot bend the rule of law to his will."

Musk and X have also faced many other lawsuits, including claims by former Twitter executives that Musk improperly withheld severance, and by vendors claiming they haven't been paid.

Tesla, the electric vehicle maker that Musk runs, has separately faced several lawsuits claiming it tolerated the harassment of workers. It has denied those claims.

MUSK TAKEOVER NOT FORESEEABLE

X accused the center of breaching its 2019 user contract by scraping and cherry-picking data to create false and misleading reports that Musk turned X into a haven for hate speech, extremism and misinformation.

According to X's complaint filed last July, the nonprofit designed its "scare campaign" to drive away advertisers, and caused tens of millions of dollars in damages.

X had argued that the nonprofit was bound by Musk’s policy changes, and could have left Twitter if it didn’t like them.

Breyer agreed that X's desire to staunch criticism was "entirely reasonable from a business point of view."

But he said the nonprofit could not have foreseen when it signed up with Twitter that Musk would eventually take over and loosen how it moderated user content.

Breyer also dismissed X's claims against the European Climate Foundation, a nonprofit based in The Hague, Netherlands that promotes efforts to mitigate climate change.

X had accused it of conspiring with the Center for Countering Digital Hate to illegally gather data.

Nathaniel Bach, a lawyer for ECF, said that nonprofit was grateful for the dismissal of Musk's "frivolous" lawsuit.

Musk's own speech has often also drawn complaints.

In November 2023, Musk endorsed an antisemitic post on X that said members of the Jewish community were stoking hatred against white people, saying the user spoke "the actual truth."

Musk has denied being antisemitic and sought to make amends, including in a January visit to the former Nazi death camp Auschwitz in southern Poland.

The case is X Corp v. Center for Countering Digital Hate Inc et al, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, No. 23-03836.


X Suit Against Online Hate-Speech Watchdog Gets Tossed by Judge

Rachel Graf
Mon, March 25, 2024 


(Bloomberg) -- A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit by Elon Musk’s X Corp. against a group that monitors online hate speech, concluding that the social media platform’s complaint was aimed at “punishing” criticism of it.

US District Judge Charles Breyer’s ruling Monday is a win for the Center for Countering Digital Hate, which was accused in the suit of falsely stating in a public research report that the social media platform “is overwhelmed with harmful content.”

“X disagrees with the court’s decision and plans to appeal,” the company said in a statement.

Musk, who is among the world’s richest people and is famous for his provocative posts on social media, late last year incited outrage with his endorsement of antisemitic commentary. At the same time, the serial entrepreneur has lashed out at critics who say that toxic speech on X — formerly known as Twitter — has proliferated since he took over the company in 2022.

X alleged in the suit against the Center for Countering Digital Hate that it launched a “scare campaign to drive away advertisers from the X platform.” One report from the center had said Twitter took no action against 99% of 100 Twitter Blue accounts the center reported for “tweeting hate.”

The social media platform claimed the nonprofit obtained the data illegally, then highlighted select information out of context to make X seem inundated with harmful content. X also named Stichting European Climate Foundation as a defendant for allegedly giving the nonprofit access to a secured database that housed data about X.

Musk has voiced similar grievances against multiple organizations that he sued or has threatened to sue. Some advertisers fled the platform after Musk bought it for $44 billion and started making changes, including reinstating formerly banned users and firing content moderators. Many have not returned, and Musk’s own tweets have been the cause of some concern among marketers.

In December, X lost its effort in court to block a California law that seeks to control toxic posts on social media by requiring companies to disclose their content-moderation polices.

Breyer used strong language to side with the center’s argument that X was trying to censor its work.

“Sometimes it is unclear what is driving a litigation, and only by reading between the lines of a complaint can one attempt to surmise a plaintiff’s true purpose,” the San Francisco judge wrote. “Other times, a complaint is so unabashedly and vociferously about one thing that there can be no mistaking that purpose. This case represents the latter circumstance. This case is about punishing the defendants for their speech.”

The nonprofit said in a statement that the ruling “sent a strong message about seeking to censor those who criticize social media companies, which we are confident will resonate throughout Silicon Valley and beyond.”

The case is X Corp, a Nevada Corporation v. Center for Countering Digital Hate, Inc., 23-cv-03836, US District Court, Northern District of California (San Francisco).

--With assistance from Aisha Counts, Kurt Wagner and Steve Stroth.

©2024 Bloomberg L.P.

Judge Tears Apart Musk’s Lawsuit Over Hate Speech on X

Noah Kirsch
Mon, March 25, 2024 

Reuters/Gonzalo Fuentes/File Photo

On Monday, a federal judge emphatically dismissed a lawsuit filed by X against a nonprofit that had raised concerns about harmful content on the social media site, declaring that the lawsuit was transparently a retaliatory ploy.

“Sometimes it is unclear what is driving a litigation,” wrote Judge Charles Breyer, whose brother, Stephen, previously served on the U.S. Supreme Court. “Other times, a complaint is so unabashedly and vociferously about one thing that there can be no mistaking that purpose. This case represents the latter circumstance. This case is about punishing the defendants for their speech.”

X, owned by billionaire Elon Musk, had sued the Center for Countering Digital Hate and other entities in July, alleging that the defendants had unlawfully gained access to its data and had misleadingly cherry-picked posts on the site to claim that it “is overwhelmed with harmful content.”

X said the defendants tried to use those findings to persuade advertisers to withhold spending on the platform. The company claimed it lost tens of millions of dollars as a result.

The CCDH, meanwhile, declared in public statements that the litigation was “a direct assault on our free speech, with the aim of running up legal costs, distracting us from our work, and deterring others from reporting on X.” The nonprofit noted that it was represented by Roberta Kaplan, who secured massive judgments against Donald Trump in his defamation battle with writer E. Jean Carroll.

Musk acquired X, formerly known as Twitter, in late 2022, and he has since faced scrutiny for his allegedly capricious management style and for laying off the vast majority of the firm’s staffers; to some critics, the remaining skeleton crew are less equipped to rein in hate speech and other abuses.

Musk has insisted the platform is thriving and performing better than ever, financially and otherwise.

 The Daily Beast.


Elon Musk’s Supreme Court Endgame in Defamation Lawsuit

Rebecca Buckwalter-Poza

SLATE
Mon, March 25, 2024


Late last year, Elon Musk sued nonprofit media watchdog Media Matters for America for defamation. That complaint, filed Nov. 20, alleges that an article by Media Matters showing that X had paired high-profile company ads with pro-Nazi content was somehow contrived, false. By suing, Musk aims to deter Media Matters and other organizations not just from publicizing X’s advertising practices but from fighting disinformation generally. Musk’s suit against Media Matters presents a genuine threat—to the watchdog, of course, but also to the First Amendment itself.

In legal parlance, Musk’s suit against MMFA is a textbook SLAPP suit—an intimidation lawsuit, brought not on merits but as a way to coerce critics into backing down by crushing them with frivolous and expensive civil litigation. Such suits are prohibited in many states for their chilling effects on speech. But there is no overarching federal anti-SLAPP law and no consensus among courts when it comes to applying individual states’ anti-SLAPP laws.

X filed its suit against Media Matters in a federal court friendly to right-wing ideologues and their political plays. The choice of venue is telling: X is based in Nevada, but MMFA is based in Washington—and the reporter who wrote the MMFA report, also named in the complaint, is based in Maryland. And Musk filed suit in the Northern District of Texas. Although changes announced this month by the federal judiciary may prevent such venue shopping in the future, X successfully bid for, and received, assignment of its case to a politically sympathetic judge.

Judge Reed O’Connor is notorious for his 2018 ruling attempting to overturn the Affordable Care Act, a decision tossed by the Supreme Court because O’Connor didn’t have jurisdiction to begin with. He was likewise overruled by that court after ruling that members of the military could defy orders surrounding COVID vaccination, with Justice Brett Kavanaugh writing that O’Connor had wrongly inserted himself “into the Navy’s chain of command.”

The home-court advantages don’t end there. Texas, along with Louisiana and Mississippi, falls under the jurisdiction of the far-right U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, which has barred the application of Texas’ anti-SLAPP law in federal court. Of its 17 active judges, 12 are Republican appointees—and six of those 12 are Trump appointees.

Texas, to which Musk has relocated and is attempting to move as many of his business ventures as possible, has rolled out the red carpet for X Corporation. The day X filed its complaint, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced a complementary fraud investigation into Media Matters. No wonder: X has hired three former Paxton lieutenants to handle the Media Matters case. Judd Stone II is the former state solicitor general, a former law clerk of Justice Antonin Scalia, and a former chief counsel for Sen. Ted Cruz.

In going after Media Matters, X means to weaponize the First Amendment against its critics. Musk has long reveled in alleging liberal-led censorship, even as he censors liberal accounts. Shortly after taking over Twitter, Musk gutted its content moderation infrastructure. He staged a circus by releasing pre-acquisition internal files and claiming that the U.S. government conspired to censor conservatives and, inter alia, cover up the crimes of Hunter Biden. It was all a conspiracy, he said, against “free speech.”

Even in Texas, Musk’s suit would founder before an impartial judge. X’s complaint blames Media Matters for advertisers—among them Apple, Comcast, NBC Universal, and IBM—ending relationships with X Corporation. Musk’s legal manipulations and bombastic attacks on the organization make clear that his intent is to punish Media Matters, driving up legal fees, and deter other journalists from reporting on X.

Even if the Northern District of Texas did have jurisdiction, that court should not find any merit in X’s suit. Whether unable to rebut the Media Matters report or unwilling to settle for citing facts in X’s favor, if any exist, the X complaint instead advances claims almost certain to be proved false.

X asserts that Media Matters “manufactured” white-nationalist content juxtaposed with advertisements and fraudulently portrayed it as X’s doing. Yet, critically, X’s complaint does not deny the heart of Media Matters’ assertion: Users on X could see top advertisers’ content next to hate speech. That’s a major problem for X: In defamation cases, the truth is an absolute defense in every federal court of appeals in the country save one. (The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit alone has held that deploying truth maliciously may still be defamatory.)

X also fails to effectively allege malice. According to X’s legal team, it was just Media Matters, as a result of its “manipulation” of X’s algorithms—and, at most, one other X user, the complaint notes in a throwaway aside—that arrived at pairings of ads with racist, antisemitic, and other white nationalist content. The organization should instead have reported, X claims, on “real users” and “the actual, organic production of content and advertisement pairings.” The claim amounts to arguing that by using X the way a “real” user might, just more efficiently and at scale, and by failing to conform to X’s preferences and parrot its representations—that is, by reporting—Media Matters acted maliciously.

In X and Musk’s version of reality, they are the arbiters and defenders of free speech. Their media strategy—threatening reporters and critics, following with legal action—buttresses that narrative. It’s all part of a more ambitious agenda. The suit should fail, but if ever there were a federal court where it might succeed, it’s the Northern District of Texas. Likewise, the 5th Circuit has proved to be a hyperpartisan venue, the most likely of all appellate courts to allow Musk’s SLAPP suit to proceed. If that’s what happens, corporate titans and right-wing blowhards will be emboldened to weaponize “free speech” against critics, eroding actual freedom of speech.

X’s gambit against Media Matters must be recognized as the cynical trick it is. Musk’s endgame is getting to the Supreme Court. There, X could fight to push First Amendment jurisprudence further rightward, aiding both corporations averse to critique and purveyors of disinformation, giving them new paths to avoiding accountability and retaliating against journalists and watchdogs. For these reasons, among many others, X’s Texas suit against D.C.’s Media Matters poses a profound threat to journalism, the Constitution, and democracy nationwide.

More and More People Leaving Twitter as Elon Musk Ruins It

Frank Landymore
Mon, March 25, 2024 


Masterful Gambit

Whatever you think of X-formerly-Twitter more than a year after Elon Musk's takeover — whether, perhaps, you think inescapable porn bot spam and paid-for blue check reply guys are worth enduring — the numbers don't lie. A mix of new data shows that the number of daily X users has been falling dramatically, NBC reports, as the chaotic social network struggles to stabilize.

According to research from market analysis firm Sensor Tower, X had 27 million active daily app users — defined as someone who "registered a session of at least two seconds in length, once in that day" — in the US this February, which is a staggering 18 percent down from a year before.

And if you start from November 2022, the first full month of Musk's leadership, that figure plunges further down to 23 percent.

It looks even worse compared to its competitors. Out of Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat — all of which have had a net decline in US app users since that November — TikTok had the largest at 9.5 percent, which still isn't even half of what X has lost.
Lousy Leadership

There's no shortage of explanations for the dropoff. Upon taking control, Musk began carrying out layoffs that would eventually see over half of X's workforce cut down, including key engineers. Since then, the site's functionality has noticeably declined.

He's also implemented controversial changes to some of its key features, such as ditching its old verified program in favor of allowing users to pay for a checkmark instead, cheapening a symbol that had long been a badge of authenticity and immediately leading to a flood of public figures being impersonated.

Not least of all, Musk's personal presence on the platform has been repulsive to both users and advertisers. With a dubious commitment to free speech, the platform has seen an uptick in hate speech since his takeover, fueled by its owner's penchant for racist, anti-semitic, and "anti-woke" rants.
Number Fumble

Still, figures shared by X paint a healthier picture. On Monday, it claimed that 250 million people were using its app daily across the globe, which NBC notes is still 8 million less than what was claimed at the start of Musk's takeover. Monthly, it claims to boast a tally of 550 million.

Some would argue that those numbers don't add up. Notably, X doesn't explain how it counts active users, NBC notes. It also claims that 1.7 million users join X every day — but according to research firm Apptopia, that's triple the amount of daily downloads of the app globally.

There's still some wiggle room to be had with the exact numbers, it seems — but anecdotally, the mass of exodus of users from the platform is hard to argue against, so the real question seems to be whether it's recouping those losses with new or returning users. If the research firms are to be believed, the answer seems to be a firm "no."

Fact Check: About Those Supposed

Photos of Extinct 'Dragons' of 

North America

Taija PerryCook

Mon, March 25, 2024 


Image via Instagram account @the_ai_experiment

Claim:

Viral photos shared in February 2024 authentically depict extinct dragons of North America.

Rating:

Rating: Fake

On Feb. 9, 2024, X (formerly Twitter) user @CMDRVALTHOR posted a series of sepia-toned images appearing to show various "extinct dragons" of North America surrounded by many men posing for the shot. The post received more than 496,800 views, as of this writing.

Many commenters questioned the authenticity of the photos, with one pointing out that a "dragon's" teeth extended into its apparent eye sockets.

(Image via Instagram account @the_ai_experiment)

The series of photos was indeed fake — entirely artificial intelligence (AI-generated). The X account that posted the series credited Instagram account @the_ai_experiment, a page that has produced dozens of similarly AI-generated posts.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CsIcUROMbGL/

Multiple conspiracies surrounding extinct dragons and dragon bones have also spread on TikTok, including a false claim that scientists successfully cloned dragons in Beijing (these AI-generated images received more than 8.9 million views, as of this writing).

The original creator of the sepia images in question, @the_ai_experiment, also posted them on TikTok in May 2023, receiving more than 19.2 million views. Although the account does not have a disclaimer in its bio, the account's handle itself confirms that the images were AI-generated.

Additionally, a test by AI detection software Hive found that the images were 99.2% likely to be AI-generated.

(Image via Hive)

While it can be tempting to imagine the fire-breathing creature taking shape in our archaeological record, there is no scientific evidence that they ever existed.

Sources:

Gershon, Livia. 'A Natural History of Dragons'. JSTOR Daily, 3 Oct. 2022, https://daily.jstor.org/a-natural-history-of-dragons/.

'Https://Twitter.Com/CMDRVALTHOR/Status/1755991396807262237'. X (Formerly Twitter), https://twitter.com/CMDRVALTHOR/status/1755991396807262237. Accessed 20 Mar. 2024.

TikTok - Make Your Day. https://www.tiktok.com/@the_ai_experiment/video/7232171560063274283?lang=en&q=extinct%20dragons&t=1710960928620. Accessed 20 Mar. 2024.

TikTok - Make Your Day. https://www.tiktok.com/@cabeladams/video/7228342101489110298?lang=en&q=extinct%20dragons&t=1710960928620. Accessed 20 Mar. 2024.

A Controversial Pyramid Isn’t Actually 27,000 Years Old—and Now, the Mystery Deepens

Tim Newcomb
Mon, March 25, 2024


A published study claiming the Indonesian pyramid Gunung Padang was crafted by humans 27,000 years ago was retracted by publishers.


The study’s authors fight the retraction, but the archeological community backs it.


Radiocarbon dating has proved the key sticking point.

The fight over the science of an ancient Indonesian landmark has taken another turn in the archeological community—a controversial October 2023 study claiming that Gunung Padang is a pyramid created by humans 27,000 years ago was recently fully retracted from Wiley, the publishers of the journal Archaeological Prospection.

On one side, a robust range of leading archeologists seem perplexed on how the study ever made it past peer review and into print in the first place. On the other side, the team of authors call the retraction “unjust” and based on “unfounded claims raised by third parties who hold differing opinions and disbelieve in the evidence, analysis, and conclusions.”

Let’s go back to the science.

The Gunung Padang site in West Java, Indonesia, includes a raised earth site. The paper’s authors—led by Danny Natawidjaja—claim that it is the remnants of a prehistoric pyramid from up to 27,000 years ago, far surpassing the oldest known pyramid in the world at a mere 4,700 years old. The team based much of their findings on radiocarbon dating from core drilling. But the retraction says that the dating has no tie to human interaction, especially in a place not believed to have been inhabited at the time the paper’s authors say humans were hand-forming the pyramid.

It all adds up to an article with a “major error,” the publishers write in the retraction. “This error,” they say, “which was not identified during peer review, is that the radiocarbon dating was applied to soil samples that were not associated with any artifacts or features that could be readily interpreted as anthropogenic or ‘man-made.’ Therefore, the interpretation that the site is an ancient pyramid built 9,000 or more years ago is incorrect, and the article must be retracted.”

Natawidjaja took the lead for the authors, arguing against the retraction, suggesting it represents a “severe form of censorship.”

Shortly after the publication of the paper, questions about the research came aplenty. “I’m surprised [the paper] was published as is,” Flint Dibble, archaeologist at Cardiff University, told Nature, upon the first report of an investigation into the paper.

The authors claim they have compelling evidence that the complex site features hidden cavities showing multi-layer construction, and that the rocks in the volcanic site were “meticulously sculpted” to be exact and arranged in a planned way. By drilling into the soil, they date layers of what they believe are constructed rooms.

There may be other explanations.

Dibble, according to Nature, claims that the natural movement and weathering of rocks can sculpt stone, and rocks can roll down hills to make them appear planned. Plus, there’s no evidence that the rocks were shaped by humans. Even haphazard, natural stone movements will create voids and spaces that could appear as purposeful rooms.

Add in the fact that there’s been no evidence of an advanced civilization at that site since the last ice age. While the soil samples may well be from 27,000 years ago, without the telltale signs of human activity—think charcoal or bone fragments—those skeptical of the study say there’s no reason to believe there was any sort of large settlement in the area during that time.

Natawidjaja and his team aren’t budging. They claim the soil samples “have been unequivocally established as man-made constructions” that feature three distinct phases of construction. They claim the shapes, composition, and arrangement of the stone bolsters the argument.

The presence of humans in the area seems to be a sticking point. Experts can agree that ceramics recovered from the dormant volcano show humans have been there at least a few hundred years, but nothing in the range of thousands of years, let alone 27,000 years.

To complicate the skirmish a bit more, politics comes into play. The Gunung Padang hilltop site is a travel destination for those practicing Islamic and Hindu rituals, and more than a decade ago—according to The New York Times—the Indonesian government was funding the narrative that the site was an ancient pyramid. Graham Hancock interviewed Natawidjaja during a Netflix documentary, Ancient Apocalypse, that aired in 2002, and he promoted the site then as an ancient pyramid.

Hancock now supports Natawidjaja and denounced the retraction, but the Society for American Archaeology wrote an open letter arguing that Hancock’s documentary “devalues the archaeological profession on the basis of false claims and disinformation.”

The fight over Gunung Padang seemingly predates the controversial study.

Camps on both sides feel strongly about their position, and the middle ground of archeologists simply don’t believe the study’s evidence supports the conclusions. “It was unfortunate that the paper had to get to this stage,” Noel Tan, a Bangkok archaeologist who had concerns about the study, told The New York Times. “But it was better to be retracted than to have nothing said about it at all.”

NASA's attempt to bring home part of Mars is unprecedented. The mission's problems are not

Corinne Purtill
Mon, March 25, 2024 at 4:00 AM MDT·7 min read


Massive cost overruns. Key deadlines slipping out of reach. Problems of unprecedented complexity, and a generation’s worth of scientific progress contingent upon solving them.

That’s the current state of Mars Sample Return, the ambitious yet imperiled NASA mission whose rapidly ballooning budget has cost jobs at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge and drawn threats of cancellation from lawmakers.

But not all that long ago, those same dire circumstances described the James Webb Space Telescope, the pioneering infrared scope that launched on Christmas Day 2021.

The biggest space telescope ever has so far proved to be a scientific and public relations victory for NASA. The telescope's performance has surpassed all expectations, senior project scientist Jane Rigby said at a meeting recently.

Its first images were so hotly anticipated that the White House scooped NASA’s announcement, releasing a dazzling view of thousands of galaxies the day before the space agency shared the first batch of pictures. Thousands of researchers have since applied for observation time.

“The world has been rooting for this telescope to succeed,” Rigby told the National Academies’ committee on astronomy and astrophysics.

Read more: NASA finally figures out how to open a $1-billion canister

Yet in the years before launch, the success and acclaim Webb now enjoys was far from guaranteed.

The telescope cost twice as much as initially anticipated and launched seven years behind its original schedule. Some members of Congress at one point tried to pull funding from the project. Even the journal Nature referred to it at the time as the “telescope that ate astronomy.”

After a thorough assessment of the project’s needs and flaws, NASA was able to turn the troubled venture around. Supporters of Mars Sample Return are hopeful that mission will follow a similar trajectory.

“A lot of great science will come out of" Mars Sample Return, said Garth Illingworth, an astronomer emeritus at US Santa Cruz and former deputy director of the project that is now the James Webb Space Telescope. “But they’ve got to get real as to how to manage this.”

Last year was a crisis point for Mars Sample Return, whose goal is to fetch rocks from the Red Planet’s Jezero crater and bring them back to Earth for study.

In July, the U.S. Senate presented NASA with an ultimatum in its proposed budget: Either present a plan for completing the mission within the $5.3 billion budgeted, or risk cancellation. A sobering independent review found in September that there was “near zero probability” of Mars Sample Return making its proposed 2028 launch date, and “no credible” way to fulfill the mission within its current budget. NASA is due to respond to that report this month.

These tubes hold samples of rock cores and regolith (broken rock and dust) collected by NASA's Perseverance rover for the Mars Sample Return campaign, which aims to bring bits of Mars back to Earth for closer study. (NASA / JPL-Caltech / MSSS)

The James Webb Space Telescope was further along in its development journey when it reached a similar crossroads in 2010, six years after construction began. Frustrated with the ballooning budget and constantly postponed launch date, the U.S. House of Representatives included no funding for the telescope in its proposed budget, which would have ended the project had the Senate agreed.

In a statement, lawmakers castigated the mission as “billions of dollars over budget and plagued by poor management,” foreshadowing the criticisms that would be leveled at Mars Sample Return more than a decade later.

To forestall cancellation, Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) ordered an independent review of the project, which was under construction in her state.

The board determined that Webb’s problems stemmed from a “badly flawed” initial budget. All the technical expertise needed to complete this ambitious project was there, the evaluators concluded. But getting it done with the amount of money currently set aside would be virtually impossible.

Illingworth remembered that review when he read the Mars Sample Return assessment, which offered a similarly stark conclusion.

“Some of the words are very familiar,” he said with a chuckle.

When the Mikulski review came out in 2010, Illingworth was deputy director of the Space Telescope Science Institute, which now leads science and operations for the James Webb Space Telescope.

He was sympathetic to the challenges facing Mars Sample Return managers, though chagrined that the James Webb Space Telescope's hard-earned lessons have apparently faded so quickly — especially the importance of having a realistic budget from the beginning.

NASA missions are managed by very smart people with established histories of doing very hard things. How does something as terrestrially mundane as budgeting continually trip them up?

“The problem is that the models that you have as a cost estimator — and they have very complex proprietary software models that attempt to understand these types of things — are all built on things that have happened, in the past tense,” said Casey Dreier, chief of space policy for the Planetary Society.

“By definition, when you're trying something completely new, it's very hard to estimate in advance how much something unprecedented will cost,” Dreier said. “That happened for Apollo, that happened for the space shuttle, it happened for James Webb, and it’s happening now for Mars Sample Return.”

Mars Sample Return also has some mission-specific challenges that Webb didn’t have to contend with. For one, it’s happening at the same time as Artemis, NASA’s wildly expensive mission to return people to the moon.

Expected to cost $93 billion through 2025, Artemis got a 27% increase in its budget over the previous year, while Mars Sample Return’s guaranteed funding is 63% less than last year’s spend.

And while NASA’s ambitions are growing, its funding from Congress, adjusted for inflation, has been essentially flat for decades. That leaves little room for unexpected extras.

“We are tasking the space agency with the most ambitious slate of programs in space since the Apollo era, but instead of Apollo-era budgets, it has one-third of 1% of U.S. spending to work with,” Dreier said. “If you stumble right now, the wolves will come for you. And that's what is happening to Mars Sample Return.”

Read more: Budget deal for NASA offers glimmer of hope for JPL's Mars Sample Return mission

Not all ambitious scientific endeavors survive the kind of scrutiny the sample return is facing. In 1993 Congress canceled the U.S. Department of Energy’s Superconducting Super Collider, an underground particle accelerator, citing concerns about rising costs and fiscal mismanagement. The government had already spent $2 billion on the project and dug 14 miles of tunnel.

But in the same week that Congress ended the supercollider, it agreed — by a margin of a single vote — to continue funding the International Space Station, a similarly expensive project whose cost overruns had been widely criticized. ISS launched in November 1998 and is still going strong. (For now, anyway — NASA will intentionally crash it into the sea in 2030.)

The space station’s future was never seriously threatened again after that painfully close vote, just as Webb’s future was never seriously questioned after the 2010 cancellation threat.

JPL, the institution managing Mars Sample Return, has already paid dearly for the mission’s initial stumbles, laying off more than 600 employees and 40 contractors after NASA ordered it to reduce its spending.

But projects that survive this kind of reckoning often emerge “stronger and more resilient,” Dreier said. “They know the eyes of the nation and NASA and Congress are on them, so you have to perform.”

NASA is set to reveal this month how it plans to move forward with Mars Sample Return. Those familiar with the mission say they believe it can still happen — and that it’s still worth doing.

“Do I have faith in NASA, JPL, all of those involved to be able to deliver on the Mars Sample Return mission with the attention and technical integrity that it requires? Absolutely,” said Orlando Figueroa, chair of the the mission's independent review team and NASA’s former “Mars Czar.”

“It will require very difficult decisions and levels of commitment, including from Congress, NASA and the administration, [and] a recognition of the importance, just like was the case with James Webb, for what this mission means for space science.”

Read more: Could a single synthetic molecule outsmart a variety of drug-resistant bacteria?

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

LOOK UP

‘Eclipse season’ begins as total solar eclipse follows ‘Worm Moon’ lunar eclipse

Anthony Cuthbertson
Mon, March 25, 2024 

A lunar eclipse on 25 March, 2024, will be followed by a total solar eclipse in April (iStock/ Getty Images)


A lunar eclipse on Monday kicks off a period dubbed “eclipse season” that will see a total solar eclipse take place exactly two weeks later.

The penumbral lunar eclipse in the early hours of 25 March during the ‘Worm full moon’ precedes a rare solar eclipse on 8 April that crosses over the United States.

The two celestial events coincide as a result of the Earth, Moon and Sun lining up, with the full moon heralding a lunar eclipse and the new moon creating a solar eclipse.

“An eclipse season is one of only two periods during each year when the Sun, the Moon and Earth are aligned, allowing eclipses to occur,” Nasa explains on its website.

“Each season lasts about 35 days and repeats just short of six months later.”

A penumbral lunar eclipse is seen through clouds during the early hours of Saturday in Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, 6 May, 2023 (The Associated Press)

While the total solar eclipse on 8 April will only be visible in North America, it will be possible to view the lunar eclipse from anywhere with clear skies on the night side of Earth.

The most recent total solar eclipse in the US took place in 2017, however the next one will not occur until 23 August, 2044.

The path of totality for the 2024 eclipse stretches from the west coast of Mexico up to the north eastern coast of Canada.

The path of totality for the solar eclipse on 8 April, 2024 (Nasa)

It passes directly over several major cities – including Dallas, Indianapolis, Toronto and Montreal – offering tens of millions of people the opportunity to view the spectacle.

Calculations from the US space agency suggest 31.6 million people live underneath the path of totality for the 2024 solar eclipse, compared to just 12 million for the eclipse that crossed over the continent in 2017.

Even those who are not directly below the path of totality will have an opportunity to witness the Moon passing in front of the Sun on 8 April, with every single state experiencing at least a partial solar eclipse.

Totality will last for around four and a half minutes, plunging the Earth below into darkness. Depending on the timing, it may be possible to view coronal mass ejections during this time, although anyone wishing to watch the eclipse are advised to use proper eye protection.

Intuitive Machines' historic private moon mission comes to an end

Mike Wall
Mon, March 25, 2024 

A fisheye photo showing parts of a gold and silver lunar lander in the foreground, with the moon's gray dirt and the bright sun in the background.


The first successful private moon-landing mission is officially over.

On Feb. 22, Intuitive Machines' Odysseus spacecraft, affectionately known as Odie, touched down near the lunar south pole, becoming the first commercial vehicle ever to ace a moon landing.

The solar-powered Odie operated on the lunar surface for seven Earth days, then went silent after the sun went down at its landing site. This was the expected length of the lander's surface mission, but Intuitive Machines held out some hope that Odie would wake up when sunlight bathed its solar arrays once more. After all, Japan's SLIM moon lander bounced back from its lunar slumber late last month.


Over the weekend, however, we learned that Odie's eyes will remain closed for good.

Related: Goodnight, Odysseus. Intuitive Machines' private moon lander goes offline — but could it rise again?

"Intuitive Machines started listening for Odie's wake-up signal on March 20, when we projected enough sunlight would potentially charge the lander's power system and turn on its radio," the Houston-based company said in a post on X on Saturday (March 23).

"As of March 23rd at 1030 A.M. Central Standard Time, flight controllers decided their projections were correct, and Odie's power system would not complete another call home. This confirms that Odie has permanently faded after cementing its legacy into history as the first commercial lunar lander to land on the moon," Intuitive Machines added in another Saturday post.

The "projections" in that latter post are the company's original prelaunch predictions — that Odie's electronics would not survive the extreme cold of the long lunar night. (The moon's day-night cycle takes nearly a month to complete, so nighttime on Earth's nearest neighbor lasts about two weeks.)


a silver and gold spacecraft can be seen at the bottom of a fish eye view of the moon's surface

Odysseus launched on Feb. 15 atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, carrying 12 payloads toward the moon. Six were NASA experiments that the agency put on board via a $118 million contract from its Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, or CLPS, and six were private payloads belonging to a variety of customers.

The 14.1-foot-tall (4.3 meters) Odie reached lunar orbit on Feb. 21 and landed a day later near Malapert A, a crater about 190 miles (300 kilometers) from the moon's south pole.

That landing turned out to be dramatic. Odie came in a bit faster than it was supposed to, thanks to a problem with its laser rangefinders, and ended up breaking one or more of its six landing legs during the touchdown. As a result, the spacecraft tipped over onto its side.

But Odie could still function in its supine state. NASA got data back from all five of its active payloads, agency officials said after the historic touchdown. (The sixth NASA payload is a passive laser reflector array that's designed to help other lunar spacecraft navigate.)

"The bottom line is that every payload has met some level of their objective, and we're very excited about that," Sue Lederer, CLPS project scientist at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, said during a press briefing on Feb. 28.

closeup photo of a gold and silver spacecraft on the moon.

NASA and Intuitive Machines see Odie's landing as the first of many pulled off by private spacecraft in the coming years. For example, Intuitive Machines' CLPS contract calls for three moon landings, and the company hopes to launch its second mission later this year.

Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic also got a CLPS deal. Its first effort, with a lander called Peregrine, ended in failure this past January when the craft suffered a propellant leak shortly after deploying from its rocket.

Astrobotic is working on its next CLPS mission, which will use a bigger lander called Griffin to put NASA's ice-hunting VIPER rover down near the lunar south pole. VIPER is currently scheduled to launch late this year atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket.

US Moon lander 'permanently' asleep after historic landing: company

AFP
Sun, March 24, 2024

This image obtained on February 27, 2024 from Intuitive Machines was taken shortly before the vehicle landed (Handout)


An uncrewed American lander that became the first private spaceship on the Moon has met its ultimate end after failing to "wake up," the company that built it said.

Houston-based Intuitive Machines said late Saturday that the lander, named Odysseus, had not phoned home this week when its solar panels were projected to receive enough sunlight to turn on its radio.

The lander touched down at a wonky angle on February 22, but was still able to complete several tests and send back photos before its mission was determined to have ended a week later, as it entered a weeks-long lunar night.

Intuitive Machines had hoped that it might "wake up" once it received sunlight again, as Japan's SLIM spaceship -- which landed upside down in January -- did last month.

The company said Saturday on X, formerly Twitter, that after several days of waiting, operators had confirmed that the power system of the lander, nicknamed "Odie," would "not complete another call home."

"This confirms that Odie has permanently faded after cementing its legacy into history as the first commercial lunar lander to land on the Moon," it said.

The mission has been hailed as a success by Intuitive Machines and NASA, even as it ran into multiple problems along the way, including the tip-over at landing.

It was also the first lunar touchdown by an American spaceship since the manned Apollo 17 mission in 1972.

NASA is planning to return astronauts to the Moon later this decade. It paid Intuitive Machines around $120 million for the mission as part of an initiative to delegate cargo missions to the private sector and stimulate a lunar economy.

Odysseus carried a suite of NASA instruments designed to improve scientific understanding of the lunar south pole, where the space agency plans to send astronauts under its Artemis program later this decade.

Intuitive Machines has two more Moon missions planned this year, both part of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative, which works with the private sector.

The United States, along with international partners, wants to eventually develop long-term habitats in the region, harvesting polar ice for drinking water -- and to produce rocket fuel for eventual onward voyages to Mars.

bur-des/bbk