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Webb telescope shares unique peek inside the early universe | CNN

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Webb telescope shares unique peek inside the early universe | CNN

Join CNN’s Surprise Concept science publication. Discover the universe with information on fascinating discoveries, scientific developments and extra.



CNN
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The James Webb Area Telescope has supplied astronomers with a glimpse of the early universe in a brand new picture shared on Wednesday.

The highly effective house observatory is able to detecting the faint mild of extremely distant galaxies as they glow in infrared mild, a wavelength that’s invisible to the human eye. Webb is a vital instrument astronomers can use to higher perceive how galaxies shaped and advanced within the early days of the universe.

The telescope captured a picture of a galaxy cluster referred to as MACS0647, in addition to the distant galaxy MACS0647-JD. The cluster seems as a stunning grouping of galaxies that appear to shine like valuable gems towards the darkish backdrop of house.

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The distant galaxy is seen due to a sure kind of observational phenomenon as a result of cluster. This phenomenon, referred to as gravitational lensing, happens when foreground galaxies act as a magnifying glass for the extra distant objects behind them.

Small bins have been used to pinpoint the galaxy MACS0647-JD, and extra detailed photographs of the galaxy are aligned alongside the appropriate facet of the picture. The cluster primarily triple lensed the galaxy, magnifying it and inflicting it to look in three separate locations throughout the picture. Every field on the appropriate showcases totally different particulars of the galaxy.

Astronomer Dan Coe found MACS0647-JD 10 years in the past utilizing the Hubble Area Telescope. The brand new Webb picture of the galaxy revealed a shock — there are two distinct options.

“With Hubble, it was simply this pale, crimson dot. We may inform it was actually small, only a tiny galaxy within the first 400 million years of the universe,” mentioned Coe, a Area Telescope Science Institute astronomer for the European Area Company and Affiliation of Universities for Analysis in Astronomy, in a NASA launch.

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“Now we glance with Webb, and we’re in a position to resolve TWO objects! We’re actively discussing whether or not these are two galaxies or two clumps of stars inside a galaxy. We don’t know, however these are the questions that Webb is designed to assist us reply.”

The 2 objects differ in colour, with one being extra blue whereas the opposite is extra crimson. The colours point out totally different gases. Whereas the blue object signifies the formation of younger stars, the crimson object is dusty and older. Astronomers suppose that the 2 objects within the galaxy picture could counsel {that a} merger between two galaxies.

“It’s actually fascinating that we see two buildings in such a small system,” mentioned Tiger Yu-Yang Hsiao, a doctoral pupil on the Johns Hopkins College, in an announcement. “We is likely to be witnessing a galaxy merger within the very early universe. If that is probably the most distant merger, I will likely be actually ecstatic!”

The analysis staff has written a paper in regards to the discovery of the potential merger, however like a lot of the primary observations from Webb because it started science operations in July, the findings has not but been by means of the peer evaluate course of. The staff can be planning a extra detailed examine of MACS0647-JD in January.

Every Webb commentary reveals beforehand hidden and unseen facets of the universe as a result of the telescope has the aptitude to spy faint infrared mild by means of thick interstellar mud. Astronomers are excited by the telescope’s potential for discoveries as a result of the observatory solely started its estimated 20-year mission a number of months in the past.

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“Up up to now, we haven’t actually been in a position to examine galaxies within the early universe in nice element. We had solely tens of them previous to Webb,” mentioned Rebecca Larson, Nationwide Science Basis fellow and doctoral pupil at The College of Texas at Austin, in an announcement. “Learning them can assist us perceive how they advanced into those just like the galaxy we dwell in as we speak. And likewise, how the universe advanced all through time.”

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Trump lashes out at Apple over plan to ship US iPhones from India

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Trump lashes out at Apple over plan to ship US iPhones from India

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Donald Trump has hit out at Apple’s plans to produce more iPhones in India as a way of avoiding US tariffs on Chinese-made goods, as he continues to push the tech group to manufacture its best-selling device in America.

Speaking in Qatar on the latest leg of his Middle East tour, the US president said he had “a little problem with Tim Cook yesterday” after the Apple chief executive confirmed last week that Indian factories would supply the “majority” of iPhones sold in the US in the coming months.

The Financial Times previously reported that Apple planned to source from India all of the more than 60mn iPhones sold annually in the US by the end of next year.

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Trump criticised that idea on Thursday, saying he told Cook: “We are treating you really good, we put up with all the plants you built in China for years. We are not interested in you building in India.”

He claimed that Apple would be “upping their production in the United States” following the conversation. Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trump’s comments are the latest sign of a cooling in the president’s relationship with Apple, one of America’s most valuable companies.

Speaking at an event in Riyadh this week after announcing a multibillion-dollar deal to sell hundreds of thousands of Nvidia processors to a new Saudi artificial intelligence project, Trump lavished praise on the chipmaker’s chief Jensen Huang from the stage, saying: “Tim Cook isn’t here but you are.”

Apple in February pledged to spend $500bn in the US during Trump’s four years in office, including producing chips and servers for AI.

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But the company faces huge challenges in replicating its vast Chinese supply chain and production facilities in the US, which rely on a skilled high-tech manufacturing workforce that is now overwhelmingly concentrated in Asia.

Analysts estimate it would cost tens of billions of dollars and take years for Apple to increase iPhone manufacturing in the US, where it at present makes only a very limited number of products.

US commerce secretary Howard Lutnick said last month that Cook had told him the US would need “robotic arms” to replicate the “scale and precision” of iPhone manufacturing in China.

“He’s going to build it here,” Lutnick told CNBC. “And Americans are going to be the technicians who drive those factories. They’re not going to be the ones screwing it in.”

Lutnick added that his previous comments that an “army of millions and millions of human beings screwing in little screws to make iPhones — that kind of thing is going to come to America” had been taken out of context.

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“Americans are going to work in factories just like this on great, high-paying jobs,” he added.

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Supreme Court’s birthright citizenship battle targets judges’ power to block policies nationwide

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Supreme Court’s birthright citizenship battle targets judges’ power to block policies nationwide

Washington — The Supreme Court on Thursday is set to consider a bid by the Trump administration to narrow three lower court orders blocking President Trump from ending birthright citizenship, in cases that test judges’ power to block a president’s policies nationwide. 

The arguments before the court, taking place in a rare May session, will be the first involving a policy rolled out by Mr. Trump in his second term. But the high court is not examining the legality of the president’s birthright citizenship executive order, which seeks to deny U.S. citizenship to children born to a mother or father who are in the U.S. unlawfully or on a temporary basis. 

Instead, the Trump administration has said district court judges overseeing three legal challenges to Mr. Trump’s policy lacked the authority to issue sweeping injunctions that extend beyond the parties involved in the litigation. The plaintiffs that brought the three lawsuits are 22 states, two organizations and seven individuals, and the Justice Department is pushing for the injunctions to apply only to them. 

A decision from the Supreme Court in favor of the administration could allow it to partially enforce the birthright citizenship measure while the litigation proceeds — but not enforce it against the plaintiffs, including residents of California, New York and 20 other states.

“This is one of a range of efforts to close the courthouse doors, to make it harder, more expensive, more complicated, slower to challenge illegal government action,” said Cody Wofsy, deputy director of the Immigrants’ Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union. “A case like birthright citizenship puts that in really stark relief where you have an executive order that is blatantly illegal, but the administration is asking the Supreme Court to make it harder for courts to protect people and vindicate constitutional rights.”

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The fight over nationwide, or universal, injunctions has been simmering for years, and several of the justices themselves have indicated that the Supreme Court would have to clarify their legality.

“Universal injunctions are legally and historically dubious,” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in a concurring opinion to the Supreme Court’s 2018 decision upholding the travel ban Mr. Trump put in place during his first term. “If federal courts continue to issue them, this court is dutybound to adjudicate their authority to do so.”

But criticisms of these broad orders reached a fever pitch this year, as the Trump administration fends off more than 200 legal challenges targeting nearly every aspect of the president’s second-term agenda, and courts around the country issue injunctions that stop his policies from taking effect.

Most of these decisions have been appealed, and the Trump administration has sought emergency relief from the Supreme Court in more than a dozen cases, including over his birthright citizenship executive order. The high court left the lower court injunctions preventing implementation of the birthright citizenship policy in place for now.

Among the president’s other plans that have been blocked were his transgender military ban, which the Supreme Court then allowed to take effect; his effort to restrict federal funding to medical institutions that provide gender-affirming care for young people; and cuts to certain federal funds.

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“The pace of universal injunctions has gotten to the point where it really is an urgent issue for the court to resolve, not just because it has meant the thwarting of the president’s ability to implement the policies for which he was elected, but also because it has led to an inundation of emergency petitions to the Supreme Court as a result of these universal injunctions,” said Joel Alicea, a law professor at the Catholic University of America.

These sweeping orders have frustrated not just Mr. Trump and his agenda, but also his predecessors. A study from the Harvard Law Review published in April 2024 found that at least 127 nationwide injunctions were issued from 1963 through 2023, though most of those, 96, were entered from 2001 through 2023.

In March, the Congressional Research Service identified 86 nationwide injunctions that were issued under Mr. Trump’s first four years in office and 28 during former President Joe Biden’s term. But the report warned that it is “not possible to provide a single definitive count of nationwide injunctions.”

As to Mr. Trump’s second term, the Congressional Research Service identified 17 nationwide injunctions issued during his first two months back in office. The Trump administration estimates there have been at least 28 of these orders entered against it by judges.

“What universal injunction practice effectively means is that a single district court judge has a veto over the president’s national policy and because there are 94 district courts in the country, that means that you have 94 opportunities in theory to shut down any given national policy,” Alicea said. “That is a recipe for genuine paralysis in terms of national policy-making and in a way that subverts the separation of powers because single district court judges were never supposed to have this kind of authority to stop national policy in its tracks.”

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Mr. Trump and his allies have attacked by name the judges issuing these decisions, and his administration has extended that battle to the relief they are granting. In a filing in one of the birthright citizenship cases, the Justice Department said universal injunctions have reached “epidemic” proportions since Mr. Trump returned to the White House in January.

“Those injunctions thwart the executive branch’s crucial policies on matters ranging from border security, to international relations, to national security, to military readiness,” Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote. “They repeatedly disrupt the operations of the Executive Branch up to the Cabinet level.”

Republicans in Congress have also taken up the cause against universal injunctions. The GOP-controlled House in April passed a bill that would restrict district court judges from issuing broad injunctive relief. It’s unclear whether the measure will pass the Republican-led Senate, where 60 votes are needed for legislation to advance.

But Wofsy, of the ACLU, said the number of lawsuits and injunctions stems from the volume of executive actions taken by the president in the opening months of his second term.

“The administration has been subject to so many nationwide injunctions and injunctions more generally because it’s doing an incredible volume of illegal things, and that is not a reason to take away a tool that the judiciary has to check executive authority. It’s the opposite,” he said. “Now more than ever it is vital that the judiciary is a strong and robust check against illegal executive actions.”

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The Supreme Court may not stop universal injunctions altogether but could curtail them, as there are instances where relief naturally extends beyond the parties involved in a case. Take, for example, a landowner who sues a factory for polluting a river. In that instance, an injunction that orders the factory to stop would benefit all who live along it, not just the single plaintiff.

“The basic principle here is courts may only issue injunctions that are as broad as necessary to remedy the plaintiff’s asserted harm,” Alicea said. “Sometimes that will require an injunction that gives protection even to nonparties as an incidental result of giving protection to the actual plaintiff.”

If the Supreme Court does curtail judges’ ability to enter universal injunctions, courts could still enter tailored relief. Plaintiffs seeking to represent a broader group of people could also file class-action lawsuits. In the context of the birthright citizenship case, a class-action lawsuit could be brought by affected pregnant women in the U.S. illegally and children at risk of losing their right to U.S. citizenship, the Trump administration has argued.

But Wofsy said class-action lawsuits, like nationwide injunctions, are one of many tools available to federal courts and may not be appropriate in every case.

“The existence of that tool doesn’t mean courts shouldn’t have other tools available,” he said. “The question here isn’t, ‘should nationwide injections be entered in every case?’ The question is, ‘are we going to take away the discretion that district courts have to use this as an appropriate tool to craft a remedy in a case where it’s necessary?’”

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He said birthright citizenship is an example of a situation in which the constitutional question is so clear, there is no reason the government needs to apply the policy to a single child while the legal challenges move forward.

“Citizenship really cuts through so many aspects of our society. It matters for so many educational, health, nutrition, other kinds of programs,” Wofsy said. “The idea that we would have a patchwork system where people’s citizenship isn’t just a matter of whether you’re born in the United States, but who your parents are, what their status is, do you have documentation, are you a member of this organization, were you born in this state or that state invites confusion, chaos, discrimination and for no real purpose.”

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As Harvard Battles Trump, Its President Will Take a 25% Pay Cut

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As Harvard Battles Trump, Its President Will Take a 25% Pay Cut

Harvard University, which is clashing with the Trump administration over its academic independence and the withdrawal of billions of dollars in research funding, said on Wednesday that its president had chosen to cut his own pay by 25 percent starting later this year.

The university has not disclosed specifics about its compensation package for the president, Alan M. Garber, who became Harvard’s permanent leader last year. His recent predecessors were paid around $1 million a year.

Whatever it amounts to in dollar terms, though, the pay reduction is a symbolic gesture compared with the scale of the university’s fight with the federal government, which has already moved to block more than $2.6 billion in funding for Harvard.

A university spokesman, Jonathan L. Swain, said Dr. Garber’s salary would be reduced starting July 1, when Harvard’s next fiscal year begins. The university, which has already halted new hiring and suspended merit raises for many employees, said that other Harvard leaders were planning contributions to the school.

The university acknowledged Dr. Garber’s decision the day after it expanded its lawsuit against the Trump administration.

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The government made a range of intrusive demands of Harvard last month, asserting that the university had, among other things, not done enough to combat antisemitism. The university has sharply contested those accusations. Then last week, Linda McMahon, the education secretary, said that Harvard would not be eligible for any more federal grants.

Legal experts have cast doubt on the viability of Ms. McMahon’s decree, and many of them believe that Harvard has a strong legal case to reverse the cuts the Trump administration has already made. Even so, Harvard, which has routinely received hundreds of millions of dollars a year in federal research funding, is preparing for turmoil as long as President Trump remains in office.

In the first months of Mr. Trump’s second term, Harvard has already had to scale back or eliminate some research programs, including efforts to study tuberculosis, Lou Gehrig’s disease and radiation sickness, because of federal funding cuts. The university’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, faced with some of the most significant funding losses, is eliminating desktop phones, limiting catering, reducing security and cutting back on purchases of new computers. The school has also cut back on leased office space, slots for doctoral students and a shuttle that ferries employees between offices.

The Crimson, the Harvard campus newspaper, first reported Dr. Garber’s pay decision.

A sense of campus solidarity in the funding fight extends beyond Harvard’s top ranks. Ninety tenured professors have pledged to take 10 percent pay cuts in order to help Harvard, the nation’s oldest and wealthiest university, weather the Trump administration’s onslaught. Ryan D. Enos, a professor of government and a leader of the group, said the university had expressed its gratitude.

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The group came together, Dr. Enos said, in recognition that some Harvard employees could be harder hit than others by the federal cuts.

In a statement, the professors, some of whom have not been named publicly, said their offer to work for less pay signaled “our commitment as faculty members to use means at our disposal to protect the university and, especially, staff and students who do not have the same protections.”

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