Collisions with boats are the cause of at least 20% of manatee deaths in Florida every year. But as Valdya Baraputri reports, that’s not the only threat faced by these gentle giants of the sea. Camera: Laurentius Wahyudi and Nabila Ganinda
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Day: March 6, 2025
WASHINGTON — A drill to search for ice. A 4G network test. Three rovers and a first-of-its-kind hopping drone.
After becoming the first private firm to land on the moon last year, Intuitive Machines is aiming for its second lunar touchdown on Thursday, carrying cutting-edge payloads to support future human missions.
The Houston-based company is targeting no earlier than 12:32 p.m. ET (1732 GMT) at Mons Mouton, a plateau near the lunar south pole — farther south than any robot has ventured.
NASA will livestream the landing an hour before touchdown as Athena, the 4.8-meter hexagonal lander — about the height of a giraffe — begins its descent.
“It kind of feels like this mission is straight out of one of our favorite sci-fi movies,” said Nicky Fox, NASA’s associate administrator for science.
Intuitive Machines’ first landing in February 2024 was a landmark achievement but ended with its lander tipping onto its side, an outcome the company is determined to avoid this time.
The pressure is on after Texas rival Firefly Aerospace successfully landed its Blue Ghost lander on Sunday, becoming the second private company to reach the moon.
Both missions are part of NASA’s $2.6 billion Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, which partners with private industry to cut costs and support Artemis, the initiative to return astronauts to the moon and eventually reach Mars.
A hopper named Grace
Athena is targeting highland terrain about 160 kilometers from the moon’s south pole, where it will deploy three rovers and a unique hopping drone named Grace, after late computer science pioneer Grace Hopper.
One of Grace’s boldest objectives is a hop into a permanently shadowed crater, a place where sunlight has never shone — a first for humanity.
While NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter proved flight is possible on Mars, the moon’s lack of atmosphere makes traditional flying impossible, positioning hoppers like Grace as a key technology for future exploration.
MAPP, the largest of Athena’s rovers and roughly the size of a beagle, will assist in testing a Nokia Bell Labs 4G cellular network linking the lander, itself, and Grace — technology designed to one day integrate into astronaut spacesuits.
Yaoki, a more compact rover from Japanese company Dymon, is designed to survive drops in any orientation, making it highly adaptable.
Meanwhile, the tiny AstroAnt rover, equipped with magnetic wheels, will cling to MAPP and use its sensors to measure temperature variations on the larger robot.
Also aboard Athena is PRIME-1, a NASA instrument carrying a drill to search for ice and other chemicals beneath the lunar surface, paired with a spectrometer to analyze its findings.
Sticking the landing
Before any experiments can begin, Intuitive Machines must stick the landing — a challenge made harder by the moon’s lack of atmosphere, which rules out parachutes and forces spacecraft to rely on precise thrusts and navigation over hazardous terrain.
Until Intuitive Machines’ first mission, only national space agencies had achieved the feat, with NASA’s last landing dating back to Apollo 17 in 1972.
The company’s first lander, Odysseus, came in too fast, caught a foot on the surface and toppled over, cutting the mission short when its solar panels could not generate enough power.
This time, the company has made critical upgrades, including better cabling for the laser altimeter, which provides altitude and velocity readings to ensure a safe touchdown.
Athena launched last Wednesday aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, which also carried NASA’s Lunar Trailblazer probe — but not everything has gone smoothly. Ground controllers are struggling to re-establish contact with the small satellite, designed to map the moon’s water distribution.
These missions come at a delicate time for NASA, amid speculation that the agency may scale back or even cancel the crewed moon missions in favor of prioritizing Mars — a goal championed by U.S. President Donald Trump and his adviser Elon Musk.
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LOS ANGELES — The day after her house burned down, Lara Ganz sent a group message to the youth theater troupe she runs: They would not let the Los Angeles firestorm stop their upcoming show.
“So many of our castmates have lost everything,” wrote Ganz, the director of youth theater at a beloved playhouse in the Pacific Palisades. “We will continue with rehearsals. I am confident we will find a stage.”
The devastating Jan. 7 fire gutted every inch of the 125-seat Pierson Playhouse, from the basement to the roof, leaving behind only a mangled steel skeleton. Many of the young actors watched it burn on live TV. About half of the show’s 45 cast members, aged 8 to 17, lost their homes or can’t yet return because of severe damage. Many also lost their schools to the fire.
But the show did go on. A two-week run of the musical Crazy for You opened last weekend, in a nearby school auditorium, marking a triumphant return to the stage for a community determined to see its theater rise from the ashes. Five more shows are scheduled for this weekend.
The experience lifted the young performers of Theatre Palisades Youth from an unfathomable low point, teaching them the healing power of art in the face of disaster.
“The first time I felt happy after the fire was when I walked into that first rehearsal,” said Callum Ganz, 17, the director’s son, who plays a tap-dancing cowboy in the show. “When I’m singing or dancing, I forget about everything else. I don’t think about the fire. All I feel is happiness.”
“It’s always a shock,” he said, “when it comes back to me and I remember, ‘Oh, right. My house is gone.'”
More than 6,800 homes and other structures were flattened in the Palisades fire. Places of worship, shops and schools were destroyed, along with favorite student hangouts downtown — the local skate shop, a pizza place, the Yogurt Shoppe, where the young performers would walk after shows for a celebratory treat.
The idea of rebuilding is still a distant dream. The fire destroyed the theater’s performance space and everything else — hundreds of costumes and shoes in the downstairs wardrobe department, vintage and new props, their piano and other musical instruments, lights and sound equipment.
Parents took to social media, posting pleas for donations. They were met with an outpouring of generosity from the artistic community, stretching from Hollywood to Broadway.
Emmy-award winning hairstylist Joy Zapata saw one of the posts, emailed the mother who wrote it to make sure it wasn’t a scam, and then put out a call to friends in the business.
“I have done horror films with 100 extras running down the Pacific Coast Highway. But this time, the story was real, and it blew me away,” Zapata said. She held a tutorial for the cast during dress rehearsals and then returned for opening night with a team of seven Hollywood hair and makeup artists.
“I wanted these kids to walk away feeling beautiful,” Zapata said, as she curled and sprayed the hair of showgirls into upswept buns. Cowgirls got braided pigtails.
A few weeks earlier, Broadway actress Kerry Butler, a Tony-nominated star of Beetlejuice, had invited the kids to sing with her during a concert in Orange County, south of Los Angeles. Then, she spent a day leading them in a master class on character development and vocal technique.
“I will never forget my time with them,” Butler wrote on Instagram. “I met people who lost their homes, schools. But they told me when they heard the theatre was gone — that was when they felt the deepest loss.”
The group also received wireless mics from Guitar Center and costumes from neighboring schools. The Paul Revere Charter Middle School, for now, has become the troupe’s home.
“Home” is a charged word in a community where so many have lost theirs. Yet for these young actors and their families, it fits.
“I’m learning that a home is not a physical thing. It’s the people,” said Scarlett Shelton, a 16-year-old from nearby Culver City who has been part of the theater since middle school.
It’s the type of small-town playhouse that no longer exists in many parts of the country. Kids join young and stay until high school, often leaving with dreams of Broadway. About half of the kids in the cast lived nearby in Pacific Palisades, and the rest come from all over the Los Angeles area.
On opening night in a new venue, much of the pre-show jitters and rituals felt the same. The big kids helped calm the nerves of “the littles,” as the young actors are affectionately called. Before the show, the entire cast circled up behind the curtain and took turns giving inspirational pep talks. “Knock their socks off!” said one child. Another stepped up to say: “Everyone, dance the night away!”
Putting on the show was not the primary goal when Ganz sent out her group text, as her own family evacuated and then learned their home was gone.
“That day of the fires, her whole life was destroyed in a few hours. But it wasn’t, ‘Woe is me, I lost everything,’” said choreographer Rebecca Barragan. “She said: ‘We need to have rehearsal right away and get these kids back on their feet. And let them know that life isn’t over.'”
The original cast of 58 kids dwindled to 45, as families scattered to new homes. Many are mired in a post-wildfire bureaucracy of insurance and government assistance and still figuring out where to go next.
“To be with the other kids and create something and have a purpose has been the most healing thing for all of us,” said Wendy Levine, whose sixth grader, Tyler, is in the show.
“It’s been a light in the darkness,” said her husband, Eric Levine. The family had just finished remodeling their home and was unpacking boxes mid-morning Jan. 7, when they were ordered to evacuate. They learned that night the home was gone.
Ironically, Crazy for You is about a small-town theater struggling to survive, set to the music of George and Ira Gershwin. As the story goes, the townsfolk are energized by coming together to create a show after their hometown is hit with hard times.
That’s what real life felt like these past few weeks, said Sebastian Florido, 14, who plays the lead character and loved getting to perform one number in particular — I Can’t Be Bothered Now, which is about the power of song and dance to chase away bad news.
“One of the lines is, ‘I’m dancing and I can’t be bothered now,’” the teen said. “It’s really relatable. All this bad stuff was happening, but I’m tap dancing with my best friends. It was like a getaway to a little paradise.”
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NEW DELHI — The U.S. government will stop sharing air quality data gathered from its embassies and consulates, worrying local scientists and experts who say the effort was vital to monitor global air quality and improve public health.
In response to an inquiry from The Associated Press, the State Department said Wednesday that its air quality monitoring program would no longer transmit air pollution data from embassies and consulates to the Environmental Protection Agency’s AirNow app and other platforms, which allowed locals in various countries, along with scientists around the world, to see and analyze air quality.
The change was “due to funding constraints that have caused the Department to turn off the underlying network” the department said in a statement. However, it added, embassies and consulates were directed to keep their monitors running and the sharing of data could resume if funded is restored. The funding cut, first reported by The New York Times, is one of many under President Donald Trump.
The U.S. air quality monitors measured dangerous fine particulate matter, known as PM2.5, which can penetrate deep into the lungs and lead to respiratory diseases, heart conditions, and premature death. The World Health Organization estimates that air pollution kills around 7 million people each year.
Reaction was immediate from scientists who said the data were reliable, allowed for air quality monitoring around the world and helped prompt governments to clean up the air.
Bhargav Krishna, an air pollution expert at New Delhi-based Sustainable Futures Collaborative, called the loss of data “a big blow” to air quality research.
“They were part of a handful of sensors in many developing countries and served as a reference for understanding what air quality was like,” Krishna said. “They were also seen to be a well-calibrated and unbiased source of data to cross-check local data if there were concerns about quality,” he added.
“It’s a real shame,” said Alejandro Piracoca Mayorga, a Bogota-based freelance air quality consultant. U.S. embassies and consulates in Lima, Sao Paulo and Bogota had the air monitoring. “It was a source of access to air quality information independent of local monitoring networks. They provided another source of information for comparison.”
Khalid Khan, an environmental expert and advocate based in Pakistan, agreed, saying the shutdown of air quality monitoring will “have significant consequences.”
Khan noted that the monitors in the city of Peshawar in Pakistan, one of the most polluted cities in the world, “provided crucial real-time data” which helped policymakers, researchers and the public to make decisions on their health.
“Their removal means a critical gap in environmental monitoring, leaving residents without accurate information on hazardous air conditions,” Khan said. He said vulnerable people in Pakistan and around the world are particularly at risk because they are the least likely to have access to other reliable data.
In Africa, the program provided air quality data for over a dozen countries including Senegal, Nigeria, Chad and Madagascar. Some of those countries depend almost entirely on the U.S. monitoring systems for their air quality data.
The WHO’s air quality database will also be affected by the closing of U.S. program. Many poor countries don’t track air quality because stations are too expensive and complex to maintain, meaning they are entirely reliant on U.S. embassy monitoring data.
In some places, however, the U.S. air quality monitors propelled nations to start their own air quality research and raised awareness, Krishna said.
In China, for example, data from the U.S. Embassy in Beijing famously contradicted official government reports, showing worse pollution levels than authorities acknowledged. It led to China improving air quality.
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