Sending astronauts to the red planet will be a decades-long activity and cost many billions of dollars. So why should NASA undertake such a bold mission?

A new report published Tuesday, titled “A Science Strategy for the Human Exploration of Mars,” represents the answer from leading scientists and engineers in the United States: finding whether life exists, or once did, beyond Earth.

“We’re searching for life on Mars,” said Dava Newman, a professor in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and co-chair of the committee that wrote the report, in an interview with Ars. “The answer to the question ‘are we alone‘ is always going to be ‘maybe,’ unless it becomes yes.”

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The United States has officially traded its democracy credentials for the banana republic starter pack, and there do not appear to be any safeguards left to get us back on the rails. Dean Blundell shares a disturbing report and itemized list of where the United States has gone, and is going, wrong. — Read the rest

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Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.) filed articles of impeachment against Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Wednesday, accusing him of abusing the powers of his office and undermining public health, putting Americans’ lives at risk.

He “has got to go,” Stevens said in a video announcing the impeachment articles. In an accompanying press statement, she said Kennedy, who rose to prominence as an ardent anti-vaccine activist, “has turned his back on science, on public health, and on the American people—spreading conspiracies and lies, driving up costs, and putting lives at risk.”  She called him the “biggest self-created threat to our health and safety.”

It is very unlikely that an impeachment push will gain traction in the Republican-controlled Congress. No other Democratic lawmakers are backing the articles.

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Not that long ago, John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight did a good bit on why public broadcasting is important. The segment features a lot of insight from UPenn media professor Victor Pickard, whose work on the (many) problems with modern consolidated U.S. corporate media has always been essential reading:

But Oliver also walked the talk. Oliver and his staff subsequently held an auction for all sorts of notable items from the show’s history, including a Bob Ross painting, a prop replica of former Trump FCC boss Ajit Pai’s goofy giant coffee mug, Russell Crowe’s jock strap, a bidet signed by a member of GWAR, and a giant gold-plated re-creation of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s balls:

“All told, the auction raised nearly $1.54 million for the Public Media Bridge Fund, which is assisting local public broadcasters in temporarily finding new funds in the wake of the CPB closure.”

After the White House falsely deemed NPR and PBS a “grift” last April, Republicans successfully pushed for a Senate vote that eliminated the CPB’s entire budget in July. That vote rescinded the $1.1 billion that Congress had allocated to CPB to fund public broadcasting during 2026 and 2027, throwing the already shaky U.S. public broadcasting system into complete existential collapse.

As we’ve noted previously, authoritarians loathe journalism. But they really loathe public broadcasting because, in its ideal form, it untethers journalism from the often perverse financial incentives inherent in our consolidated, billionaire-owned, ad-engagement based corporate media.

A corporate media that is easily bullied, cowed, and manipulated by bad actors looking to normalize, downplay, or validate no limit of terrible corruption and bullshit (see: CBS, Washington Post, the New York Times, the LA Times, and countless others). A media that has increasingly stopped serving the public interest in loyal dedication to our increasingly unhinged extraction class.

One of the real harms of the cuts has been to already struggling local U.S. broadcasting stations. While NPR doesn’t really take all that much money from the public anymore (roughly 1% of NPR’s annual budget comes from the government), the CPB distributed over 70 percent of its funding to about 1,500 public radio and TV stations.

Many of those news stations operated in places where quality, local news is difficult if not impossible to find. Local papers have usually either closed or been purchased by soulless hedge funds that are buying papers, stripping them for parts, and hollowing out and homogenizing their coverage. Most U.S. “local news” is dominated by right wing propaganda pseudo-journalism broadcasters like Sinclair Broadcasting.

U.S. “public broadcasting” was already a shadow of the true concept after years of being demonized and defunded by the right wing, so even calling hybrid organizations like NPR “public” is a misnomer. Still, the underlying concept remains an ideological enemy of authoritarian zealots and corporations alike, because they’re very aware that if implemented properly, public media often provides a challenge to their well-funded war on informed consensus, as Pickard has long explained.

DC lawmakers and regulators (including Democrats) have been an absolute embarrassment on building and maintaining any sort of coherent media reform strategy. The evidence of that apathy has never been less subtle. So a hearty thank you to John Oliver for giving a shit.

Disney is bringing a “newly restored version” of the original, 1977 theatrical cut of Star Wars back to theaters on February 19th, 2027. It will only be available in theaters for “a limited time,” Disney says, and it’s being released as part of “Lucasfilm’s yearlong 50th anniversary celebration” for the franchise. Tickets aren’t on sale yet, but Disney says it will share details on when and where to buy tickets on StarWars.com.

Disney initially revealed earlier this year that it would be bringing Star Wars back to theaters. Star Wars creator George Lucas has famously tinkered with what’s now called A New Hope, but a few lucky fans have already been able to recently see the first theatrical cut; The British Film Institute showed an original, 35mm release print of the movie in June at an event that featured an introduction from Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy, who confirmed that it was “in fact, the first print.”

Ahead of the re-release of the first Star Wars, Disney is bringing The Mandalorian and Grogu to theaters on May 22nd, 2026. Another film, Star Wars: Starfighter, starring Ryan Gosling, is coming to theaters on May 28th, 2027.

The future of Detroit's presented by 1987's Robocop was hardly inspiring: a blighted landscape where cops and robbers alike are pawns of the giant corporation redeveloping it. But after 38 years its satire of capitalism, consumerism and AI is sharper than ever, and after 15 years a warehoused statue of the character has finally been installed there. — Read the rest

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