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There's also the case of the (now former) chief of the German Navy who had to resign over some rather remarkable statements made on a trip to India. The gist of it is "screw Ukraine, we need Russia as an ally against China." The government denies that this is their position but the Ukrainians are not convinced.

Well, if they needed an exemption there must have been some regulation already. Info on the CDC's web site suggests that exceptions are rather limited. I don't know if that has changed recently but it looks like the rules were tightened recently as the info was lasst updated on 21 December. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/travelers/proof-of-vaccination.html

The sport doesn't matter if he can't enter the country. And from what I have read you can't enter the US unvaccinated. OK, if you can prove that you have recently recovered you may enter without vaccination, so he could try that trick again. The question is if the US would accept his "proof."

Troops are now told to fire without warning. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-59907235

Not much mid course correction needed because the launch was perfect. That saved some fuel.

According to whereiswebb, there is only one more burn, when Webb enters its orbit around L2.

Sanctions can hurt Putin. If his oligarch friends can't enjoy their wealth anymore because of travel bans and restrictions of trade with Russia they won't be pleased. His standing with the general population won't necessarily improve either. The question is if the US and the EU are ready to hurt their own economies. If sanctions are to have an effect then there will be a cost.

From earth to L2 is about four times the distance from the earth to the moon.

The gravity of the sun and the earth add up in L2. That allows an object parked there to orbit the sun with the same orbital period as the earth, despite the orbit being larger / wider than the earth's orbit. And of course the sun's gravity is much stronger. An "orbit around L2", which is really a wobble in the orbit around the Sun, is unstable. That's bad insofar as it requires frequent corrections. But it also ensures that it's empty of debris. There are quite a few spacecraft in orbit around L2 already, but those are all known: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrange_point#Spacecraft_at_Sun–Earth_L2

That would make sense.

No, that will need a boost from its own engine. The last stage brought it up to just below escape velocity.

It's not quite on its way yet. It's in an earth orbit.

The launch has been successful. But that wasn't really the critical part. Let's hope the telescope unfolds and reaches its final destination as planned.

https://xkcd.com/2014/

So, Scholz has been elected, Merkel is out. No surprises there.

Well the Greens declared Baerbock candidate for Chancellor. That got her a lot of attention, but also put her under close scrutiny, which she couldn't stand up to. She simply wasn't up to the task. (Neither will she be as foreign minister.) On the other hand, 15% is the best result ever for the Greens, they just raised much higher expectations in their support base.

We don't know yet. They haven't announced a cabinet list yet. They'll probably wait till the parties have approved the coalition deal.

I think that's a rather feeble excuse. The federal government's term has expired but it's still fully functional. And all the executive power lies with the state governments anyway. Merkel never did more than chair the meetings.

Well, the prospects for Russia's space program aren't very good. Putin just slashed its budget. That on top of the revenue from flying Astronauts to the ISS, which they lost to SpaceX.

If I recall correctly, FTL travel is a series of "jumps", which require some preparation. You assess your current position, then do some complicated math, perform the jump, which will (hopefully) get you close to the expected position. Then you repeat the whole thing. The distance you can cover with a single jump is limited by the precision of the math. Doing a very long jump runs the risk of ending up inside a star. On the second foundation with its telepathic capabilities: If they could steer the Galaxy along the Seldon plan, shouldn't they have been able to take over and save the empire? The whole thing doesn't make much sense to me.

Haven't seen any of the shows yet. In the books, the rules and what the Seldon plan really is about change with each instalment. First it's all about statistics and how it's possible to predict history with math because individuals don't matter. Later it's the opposite, with telepaths bending people to their will, which shouldn't make much difference if the original premise held, but totally does.

The region Rain in Spa isn't exactly rare, but there have been some unusually heavy rainfalls this year in the region, which caused some very bad floods. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_European_floods

The Japanese Grand Prix has been cancelled because of Covid.

Ain't no such thing as a crew there. Only passengers.

Mira Furlan has died? That leaves about half the cast dead.