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Suborbital space tourism finally arrives | FCC prepares to run public C-band auction | The big four in the U.S. launch industry — United Launch Alliance, SpaceX, Blue Origin and Northrop Grumman — hope to be one of two providers that will receive five-year contracts later this year to launch national security payloads starting in 2022. | China’s launch rate stays high | The International Space Station is the largest ever crewed object in space.

Electrifying cement with nanocarbon black

Since its invention several millennia ago, concrete has become instrumental to the advancement of civilization, finding use in countless construction applications — from bridges to buildings. And yet, despite centuries of innovation, its function has remained primarily structural. A multiyear effort by MIT Concrete Sustainability Hub (CSHub) researchers, in collaboration with the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), has aimed to change that. Their collaboration promises to make concrete more sustainable by adding novel functionalities — namely, electron……

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Altalena Memorial in Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel

In May 1948, Israel declared independence and was attacked by all its neighbors and needed major supplies. A cargo ship, the Altalena, was sailing from France filled with fighters, and thousands of rifles, machine guns, and other weaponry. It was intended for the Irgun, a paramilitary group.  However, due to prime minister David Ben Gurion’s fear of the Irgun, there was a fallout with its leader Menachem Begin. He refused to hand the weapons over to the government. In retaliation,……

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Laurel Grove School Museum in Alexandria, Virginia

Originally known as Laurel Grove Colored School And Church, the Laurel Grove School Museum is a small, one-room schoolhouse that sits just off of Beulah Street, dwarfed by the office park that looms behind it.  The schoolhouse was built by formerly enslaved people who organized a congregation and held church services in a grove of laurel near the site of the school, hence the name “Laurel Grove.” Members of the congregation, parents, grandparents, and neighbors, wanted to provide the……

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Catalina Country Club in Avalon, California

Wrigley Field in Chicago, Illinois is known the world over as the home of the Cubs but it wasn’t the first Wrigley field that players called home. That’s an honor reserved for a field on an island just off the coast of Southern California in Los Angeles County: Catalina Island. And the field isn’t the only Cubs connection the island can boast. At what is now the Catalina Country Club in the town of Avalon, an extensive collection of……

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Alphabet’s CapitalG leads $40 million round in...

Community banks and credit unions aim to be the heart of the, well, communities, they serve. But without the big budgets of larger institutions, keeping up technology-wise can be a challenge. And not only are they competing with legacy players, there is also a slew of digital banks that have emerged in recent years, as well. Enter MANTL, a startup that has developed technology to make it easier for people to open accounts digitally at community banks and credit……

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Podcast: Narcisse Snake Dens

Listen and subscribe on Stitcher, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and all major podcast apps. In this episode of The Atlas Obscura Podcast, we visit with a Canadian community that comes together to save its slithering neighbors—the largest single concentration of harmless garter snakes in the world. Our podcast is an audio guide to the world’s wondrous, awe-inspiring, strange places. In under 15 minutes, we’ll take you to an incredible site, and along the way you’ll meet some fascinating people and……

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Travelex Insurance Introduces A New Travel Mobile...

OMAHA, Neb., April 20, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Travelex Insurance Services, a travel protection industry leader, introduces Travel On, a new travel app designed to enhance customers’ demand for increased safety and peace of mind. Available free with the purchase of Travelex’s most popular leisure travel protection plans, Travel On will provide travelers with destination intelligence and travel advice regarding food and water safety, vaccinations, cultural gestures to be aware of, ATM access plus a snapshot of the security……

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Chargebee valued at $1.4 billion in new...

A startup that enables businesses to set up and manage their billing, subscription, revenue operations and compliance has become the newest firm to earn the much coveted unicorn status. Chennai and San Francisco-headquartered Chargebee said on Tuesday it has raised $125 million in its Series G financing round led by Sapphire Ventures and existing investors Tiger Global and Insight Venture Partners. The new financing round valued the 10-year-old startup at $1.4 billion, a 3x increase since the Series F……

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Payhawk raises $20M to unify corporate cards,...

Fintech startup Payhawk has raised a $20 million funding round. QED Investors is leading the round with existing investor Earlybird Digital East also participating. Payhawk is building a unified system to manage all the money that is going in and out. Essentially, companies switching to Payhawk can replace several services they already use and that didn’t interact well with each other. Payhawk lets you issue corporate cards for your employees, manage invoices and track payments from a single interface…….

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The Thorny Problem of Tallying Every T....

Today, South Dakota is home to prairie and pasture, bisected by bands of asphalt and the sprawling squiggle of the Missouri River. In terms of human residents, the state is one of the emptiest in America, but millions of cattle graze on the land unfurling below a generous sky: In 2017, according to figures from the Census Bureau and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, South Dakota’s bovines outnumbered the state’s humans by more than four to one. The local……

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Daily Crunch: Facebook announces new audio products

Facebook reveals its Clubhouse competitor, Parler will return to Apple’s App Store and a helicopter flies on Mars. This is your Daily Crunch for April 19, 2021. The big story: Facebook announces new audio products Yes, these products include new Clubhouse-style Live Audio Rooms, as well as the ability for podcasters to share long-form audio, some new Spotify integration and a shorter format called Soundbites. Facebook is starting off by testing Live Audio Rooms in Facebook Groups. “When we……

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Feds weighing how to respond after verdict...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration is privately weighing how to handle the upcoming verdict in the trial of former Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin, including considering whether President Joe Biden should address the nation and dispatching specially trained community facilitators from the Justice Department, aides and officials told The Associated Press. Closing arguments began Monday in Chauvin’s trial with a prosecutor telling jurors that the officer “had to know” he was squeezing the life out of George Floyd…

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Anger swells as fans, teams react to...

A banner hung on the railings outside Anfield bearing a pointed message to Liverpool’s American ownership: “Shame on you. RIP LFC 1892-2021.” Liverpool’s players arrived for an English Premier League match at Leeds United’s Elland Road a few hours later, to the backdrop of jeers and abusive chants by fans gathered outside the stadium. Even Leeds’ players had a message for Liverpool on the field. They warmed up with the words “Earn it” on the front of their T-shirts…

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Cool Crest Miniature Golf in San Antonio,...

Supposedly, Cool Crest got its name from the sloping hillside that it was built on and that even in the hot Texas climate, it manages to catch a breeze that always makes it feel nice and cool. There are two courses on the premises: the “Old Course” circa 1929 and the “New Course” circa 1957. The “Old Course” is one of the oldest operating miniature golf courses in the world.  Retired trucker Harold Metzger and his wife Maria, leased……

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Arnie Lillo in Good Thunder, Minnesota

The front and back yard of this metal shop is filled with various works of art.  Some of the choice pieces visitors will find are the “World’s Largest Firing Rifle,” a replica of the Eiffel Tower, flowers, insects, eagles, a functioning locomotive, Noah’s Arch (with audio recordings about the Arch), and even a massive horseshoe archway. The works vary in size, detail, and scale. Lillo even spent the better part of a year constructing the infamous shootout involving the James-Younger……

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