Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs Faces Another Investigation Into Suspicious Rate Hike

In anticipation of the longest government shutdown in U.S. history finally ending, MSNBC’s Katy Tur couldn’t let it end without degrading President Trump one last time, pointing to the mass-firings of federal employees and withholding of SNAP benefits as evidence of “callousness.” Tur believed that, “… the shutdown did reveal quite a dark side of Donald Trump. I mean, posting about the grim reaper coming to slash government jobs, laying off workers, just wait. Suing states to say, ‘No, you can't release these SNAP funds.’” She then suggested that Trump used to be more sympathetic and manipulable under emotional pressure: There was a certain callousness that went further than I've seen Donald Trump go in the past. Usually when he's presented with suffering, or in the past when he had been presented with suffering, he's folded…     Prompted by Tur, staff writer for The Atlantic Ashley Parker emphasized how much the President must have enjoyed punishing others during the shutdown: TUR: Am I wrong to say that there's a change there? Has there been an evolution or devolution? PARKER: Part of what it revealed is what we've long known, Katie, which is his sort of gleeful exuberance of, you know, “We're gonna make cuts to Democratic projects and Democratic states. We're gonna lay off the federal bureaucrats who we don't like anyhow.” I think that's less of a revelation for students of the President and more of an underscoring that this is not Barack Obama, “There's no red states and blue states. There's just purple states in a unified American.” He's always made clear that he views himself as the President for his supporters. Parker went on to support Tur’s theory of Trump’s former vulnerability: “It's interesting what you said about when he is faced with suffering, he often folds. I think that's right. But it's often visual pictures [...] of suffering, the sort of suffering you see in a war, in a strike. Sometimes even in immigration detention facilities.” Well, not getting free money for food or not working for the federal government (which were paid for by you, dear reader) weren't remotely as destitute as either of those examples. Maybe it’s time to wean America off of the welfare state. The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read: MSNBC’s Katy Tur Reports November 12, 2025 3:25:58 p.m. EST (…) KATY TUR: So, Ashley, we talked about this a little bit earlier, and I'd love you to weigh in on this as well, the shutdown did reveal quite a dark side of Donald Trump. I mean, posting about the grim reaper coming to slash government jobs, laying off workers, just wait. Suing states to say, “No, you can't release these SNAP funds.” Arguing that the people that are really hurting from this or should be punished during the shutdown are Democrats, even though when you look at the maps, the people that enjoy the SNAP benefits, or people that need the SNAP benefits or people that need the ACA subsidies largely come from — come from everywhere, but there's a big concentration in the deep red states. There was a certain callousness that went further than I've seen Donald Trump go in the past. Usually when he's presented with suffering, or in the past when he had been presented with suffering, he's folded, which is why I thought the Democrats might have a chance to get him at some point to force the Republicans to vote on an extension of these subsidies. Am I wrong to say that there's a change there? Has there been an evolution or devolution? ASHLEY PARKER: Well, it's interesting. Part of what it revealed is what we've long known, Katie, which is his sort of gleeful exuberance of, you know, “We're gonna make cuts to Democratic projects and Democratic states. We're gonna lay off the federal bureaucrats who we don't like anyhow.” I think that's less of a revelation for students of the President and more of an underscoring that this is not Barack Obama, “There's no red states and blue states. There's just purple states in a unified American.” He's always made clear that he views himself as the President for his supporters. What is perhaps more surprising, some of the stuff like the Affordable Care Act, the premiums, the subsidies, that's something that is going to hurt his supporters as much as anyone else. Same with the SNAP benefits. It's interesting what you said about when he is faced with suffering, he often folds. I think that's right. But it's often visual pictures — TUR: Yeah. PARKER: — of suffering, the sort of suffering you see in a war, in a strike. Sometimes even in immigration detention facilities. But I wondered, to your question, I don't know the answer, some of these premiums that there's not sort of a photo image or a TV image that captures someone like you played in that phone call, whose premiums, whose healthcare is now gonna cost more than their salary. And that might be the disconnect that you're articulating, Katie. (…)

A judge in Georgia has dropped three charges in the 2020 election interference case against President Donald Trump and others.Trump was charged with two of the counts that were dropped by Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee on Friday. The charges related to filing false documents. 'We remain confident that a fair and impartial review will lead to a dismissal of the case against President Trump.' McAfee had previously dropped six counts in the same indictment in March 2024, including three charges against Trump."This politically charged prosecution has to come to an end. We remain confident that a fair and impartial review will lead to a dismissal of the case against President Trump," said Trump's attorney Steve Sadow on Friday.The case also received a new top prosecutor Friday after Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis was disqualified from the case after it was discovered that she had an affair with special prosecutor Nathan Wade. He has also stepped down from the case.Peter Skandalakis, the director of the Prosecuting Attorneys Council of Georgia, appointed himself in the position to replace Willis. Had he not done so, the case would have had to be dropped by the Friday deadline set by McAfee."I am keenly aware that this matter has been of significant public interest since January 2021, when District Attorney Fani Willis announced the initiation of the investigation," said Skandalakis. "My only objective is to ensure that this case is handled properly, fairly, and with full transparency discharging my duties without fear, favor, or affection." RELATED: Former Trump lawyer Jenna Ellis agrees to plea deal in Georgia election interference case On Monday the administration announced full pardons for some of those indicted in the Georgia case, but Skandalakis said the presidential pardons apply only to federal charges and do not affect the state case.Thirty-two counts remain in the election interference case. The president has pleaded not guilty.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Blaze News in September reported about a violent and rampant repeat offender who was accused of randomly punching and knocking out a mother of 11 on a Chicago street in broad daylight.The victim — 56-year-old Kathleen Miles — didn't know what hit her as she walked to a train with a co-worker along West Washington Avenue on Aug. 19.'This guy is strong, and scary, and he knows what he's doing.'Miles recalled to WLS-TV at the time that the culprit "hit me with such force" that the punch knocked her out and left her with several broken facial bones and a concussion.Police told WLS that Miles was attacked by 32-year-old William Livingston. Police told Blaze News that Livingston was charged with two felony counts of aggravated battery/public place, a felony count of aggravated battery/great bodily harm, and a misdemeanor count of reckless conduct/bodily harm.The video report below not only shows how badly Miles was injured but also includes surveillance video of the devastating punch.RELATED: Chicago thug accused of randomly punching mother of 11 in face, knocking her out on downtown street — and White House reacts WGN-TV reported that Livingston was arrested the same day of the attack. Cook County Jail records indicate Livingston was booked Aug. 21, and he has remained in jail as of Friday with no bond.Livingston has been described by WMAQ-TV as a "so-called serial puncher." A WBBM-TV investigation found he had been arrested at least 20 times dating back to 2012 "but keeps being released from custody."Well, Livingston on Wednesday was arrested yet again — and believe it or not, while he was behind bars in Cook County Jail, Chicago police told Blaze News.Police said officers along with the U.S. Marshals Great Lakes Regional Fugitive Task Force arrested Livingston after he was identified as the offender who struck two victims — a 40-year-old female and a 29-year-old female — in the 2700 block of North Clark Street on June 12. Police said he was charged with two felony counts of aggravated battery/public place.One of the victims, Anne Kurze, identified Livingston from a police lineup as her attacker, WBBM-TV reported: "He stood about this far from me, and punched me, and then kept walking north up the street."After Livingston was formally charged in connection with the June attacks, Kurze told WBBM that "any day he is off the street is a good day. It does stir up a lot of big feelings, a lot of free-floating anxiety, fear — that feeling of being so scared back in June."WBBM also said Kurze suffered a neck injury and concussion as a result of the punch: "It could have been so much worse; this guy is strong, and scary, and he knows what he's doing."The Cook County State's Attorney's Office added to WBBM that Livingston is being directly indicted in the case, meaning that officials are taking the evidence straight to a grand jury.RELATED: 54-year-old repeat offender accused of fatally stabbing woman, 25, after first spitting on her in Chicago WLS at the time of the attack against Miles said a records search produced 13 mugshots of Livingston going back to 2012 — and that a large number of those arrests were for aggravated assault and battery of both women and police officers."Like, what is enough?" Miles asked WLS. "You know, what does someone have to do? Where someone, where he's going to be, where they're going to be held accountable."RELATED: 54-year-old repeat offender accused of fatally stabbing woman, 25, after first spitting on her in Chicago Here's a brief rundown of Livingston's violence over the last eight years, according to WLS:In 2017, he was accused of randomly attacking two women months apart. Both cases were dropped.In 2022, Livingston was sentenced to five years in prison after prosecutors said he punched and attempted to rob four women within 20 minutes in the Loop.In 2023, while on parole, Livingston was arrested for hitting a woman in the face on North Michigan Avenue.And in 2024, Livingston was sentenced to 100 days in prison after he punched a 15-year-old girl, also on North Michigan Avenue.Police said Livingston was arrested at 12:26 p.m. on Feb. 8, 2022, after being identified as the individual who struck and attempted to take personal property from multiple female victims within minutes of each other. Police said Livingston was charged with four felony counts of aggravated battery/public place, two felony counts of attempted robbery, and one misdemeanor count of battery/make physical contact.Cami Blechschmidt, a DePaul University student, described to WGN the random attacks against her and three other women that day.“I felt a hand in my pocket, turned my head like that, and there was a man directly in front of me, and he punched me directly in the face,” Blechschmidt recounted to WGN in 2022. “We made eye contact, and like, he just had pure hate in his eyes. Just anger, pure anger.”Shortly after the attack against her, Miles told WLS that if Livingston "had been held accountable for his actions, then I wouldn't be sitting here with injuries."RELATED: Thugs rob teen of his iPhone, Nike sneakers; but boy's family finds 1 suspect — and delivers painful payback: Cops Following Livingston's arrest earlier this week, Miles told WMAQ that she hopes Livingston now will be prevented from carrying out future attacks — and indeed she added to the station that the trauma of the August attack against her still lingers: "I struggle with it every day; I struggle with just fear of being hurt."Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Democrats thought they had the smoking gun to incriminate Donald Trump, but the email release might have vindicated Trump and confirmed what Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) once let slip — that Trump was an FBI informant sent to lock up Jeffrey Epstein.In one of the Epstein emails, he writes, “I want you to realize that that dog that hasn’t barked is Trump. Virginia spent hours at my house with him. He has never once been mentioned. Police chief, etc. I’m 75% there.”“This continues to point toward the fact that President Trump may have been an FBI informant who actually turned Epstein in, because ... a few months ago when we were talking about all of the Epstein files, Mike Johnson seemed to accidentally slip,” BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales explains.“He said it so casually, and he very clearly said, ‘He was an FBI informant,’ and then had to walk it back,” she continues. “But you can’t put the genie back in the bottle. This was a very big revelation from Speaker of the House Mike Johnson.”- YouTubeEnjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.“He’s not saying what Epstein did is a hoax. It’s a terrible, unspeakable evil. He believes that himself, when he first heard the rumor, he kicked him out of Mar-a-Lago. He was an FBI informant to try to take this stuff,” Johnson said in an interview, stumbling through that last sentence as if he made a mistake.“So when you start piecing that together with what we have today, which is Michael Wolff, who was in some of these emails ... he’s the journalist who hates President Trump. He has written many books about how much he hates President Trump, and he was in constant communication with Jeffrey Epstein trying to figure out how to blackmail Donald Trump. Not a very good guy,” Gonzales comments.And in an interview on the “PBD Podcast” with Patrick Bet-David, Wolff admitted that “Epstein believed that it was Trump who first informed the police about what was going on at Epstein’s house.”“And from that point on, they were ... nothing but bitter enemies,” Wolff added.“So you have Michael Wolff, who hates President Trump, who loves the sex trafficker, good friends. He’s besties with the sex trafficker. And he says that the sex trafficker really, really thought that President Trump was the one who went to law enforcement about him. In fact, it turned them into enemies,” Gonzales says.“And then you have Mike Johnson, oopsies, accidentally saying that President Trump was an FBI informant. And then you have Jeffrey Epstein’s emails that say that he’s 75% there. He thinks that Trump had done something. ‘The dog that hasn’t barked is Trump,’” she continues.“I don’t think the Democrats thought this thing through when they decided to just release all of this, but I mean, I guess they’d have to have brains to be able to think it through,” she adds.Want more from Sara Gonzales?To enjoy more of Sara's no-holds-barred takes on news and culture, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

ESA/Gaia/DPACA map of the motion of 2 billion stars as they careen throughout the Milky Way. In a feat of cosmic proportions, astronomers have generated the most detailed atlas of the Milky Way yet — and it’s in 3D. Compiled from data gathered by the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Gaia observatory, which has been clocking the cosmos since 2013, the exhaustive star map will give astronomers clues as to how exactly our home solar system formed some 4.5 billion years ago. The star atlas includes the positioning and movements of 2 billion known stars that dot our galaxy, including their coloring, brightness, and the first visual evidence of the acceleration of our solar system. What’s more, astronomers were also able to map the Milky Way’s neighboring galaxies. ESA/Gaia/DPACPictured are the Milky Way’s neighboring dwarf galaxies, the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds. The Milky Way is a 13.5-billion-year-old disc of star matter and looking deeper into it reveals its past. Indeed, scientists were able to map the size and makeup of the galaxy as it was 10 billion years ago, simply by looking further into space. So far, the map has confirmed the long-held belief that our solar system is accelerating as it orbits throughout the galaxy and orbits ever closer to the galaxy’s center, at a rate of about seven millimeters a second. Understanding the rate of our solar system’s acceleration throughout the galaxy is integral to mapping the age and creation of our solar system. The data also shows how the movement of stars on the outer edges of the Milky Way, known as the galaxy’s “anticenter,” hint at significant fluctuations in the galaxy’s makeup throughout the eons. ESA/Gaia/DPACThis is a brightness and color map of the galaxy. Higher concentrations of stars are shown in more intense colors. The movement of these stars also revealed that the Milky Way almost smashed into a neighboring galaxy known as Sagittarius. Though the two didn’t collide, they did get close enough that the gravity in the larger Milky Way galaxy was able to distort or knock about some of the stars on the edges of the Sagittarius galaxy. The ESA described this mini-showdown and its ripple effects as what happens when a “stone is dropped into water.” Scientists are currently confident that the Milky Way is in the process of consuming Sagittarius. In total, Gaia has mapped 92 percent of the celestial bodies within 326 light-years of our Sun. The last census of our “solar neighborhood” took place in 1957 and mapped just 915 objects. It was updated in 1991 to include 3,803 objects, but it also only observed a distance of 82 lightyears from our sun, rendering this latest census the most exhaustive in human history. Explore Gaia satellite’s incredible map of our galaxy. Since its launch in 2013, the Gaia observatory has published three mind-bending press releases about the history of our universe. Since its last press release in 2018, the observatory has mapped over 100 million new stars in our galaxy. Its deputy scientist fittingly referred to the research as “a treasure trove for astronomers.” The Gaia telescope, which is known as a “galaxy surveyor,” is positioned is about 930,000 miles from Earth facing the opposite direction from the sun. This positioning is optimal for data collection because it is balanced between the gravity of Earth and the Sun and is, therefore, able to remain still. This also means it can use less fuel in order to stay in place. Also, because it is facing away from the Earth, the telescope doesn’t pick up any light interference from our home planet, making for a clear view of the cosmos. ESA/Gaia/DPACThis is a density map of the galaxy, where the brightest and most massive stars are whitest. As groundbreaking as Gaia’s discoveries have been, the work is still incredibly difficult. “Gaia is measuring the distances of hundreds of millions of objects that are many thousands of light-years away, at an accuracy equivalent to measuring the thickness of hair at a distance of more than 2000 kilometers,” said Floor van Leeuwen, an astronomer at the University of Cambridge’s Institute of Astronomy and UK Gaia DPAC project manager. Astronomers aren’t disheartened by this challenge, however. As van Leeuwen added, “These data are one of the backbones of astrophysics, allowing us to forensically analyze our stellar neighborhood, and tackle crucial questions about the origin and future of our Galaxy.” Gaia will continue its census of our solar neighborhood and beyond, painstakingly unraveling the history of our universe one star plot at a time. For now, though, we can use Gaiaga’s 3D model to observe our ancient cosmic history as no man has ever been able to before. Next up, watch as a star the size of our Sun gets shredded by a supermassive black hole. Then, learn 29 space facts that prove life on Earth isn’t all that interesting. The post Astronomers Just Created The Most Detailed 3D-Map Of Our Galaxy Yet appeared first on All That's Interesting.

NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/J. da Silva/Spaceengine/M. ZamaniAn artist’s rendition of the universe’s first stars as they would have appeared roughly 100 million years after the Big Bang. Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope believe they have discovered Population III stars — the universe’s first generation of stars that formed shortly after the Big Bang — according to a study published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters on Oct. 27, 2025. The discovery centers on a distant star cluster called LAP1-B, located about 13 billion light-years from Earth. Researchers argue that this is the first cluster to satisfy all the major theoretical predictions about the earliest stars. “If indeed Pop III, this is the first detection of these primordial stars,” lead author Eli Visbal, an astrophysicist at the University of Toledo, told Live Science. And these early stars could help reveal how galaxies form across the universe. Inside The Potential Discovery Of The Universe’s Oldest Stars Population III stars are theorized to have formed from only hydrogen and helium — the elements created during the Big Bang — combined with dark matter, the mysterious material that makes up a substantial portion of the universe. Scientists believe that these celestial bodies were massive in size, and probably much brighter and hotter than the Sun. The team identified LAP1-B with the help of gravitational lensing, a phenomenon predicted by Albert Einstein, in which a massive foreground object warps space-time and magnifies distant background objects. The galaxy cluster MACS J0416 magnified LAP1-B, making the faint object visible to the James Webb Space Telescope. “Where it happens to be situated, the light gets bent by gravity in such a way that it magnifies it like 100 times,” Visbal said in a statement from the University of Toledo. “LAP1-B would have ordinarily been impossible to see, even with the best telescopes, but we can see it because of this effect.” NASA/ESA/HSTAn example of the gravitational lensing effect used to see distant galaxies. Multiple pieces of evidence support the Population III identification. The stars’ spectra showed emission lines suggesting high-energy photons, which line up with theoretical predictions for these primordial stars. Analysis of the stars’ emission lines showed considerable stretching, matching up with the universe’s expansion over the course of billions of years. As Visbal explained: “They teach us about the earliest stages of galaxy formation and evolution — for example, how metals pollute the initially pristine hydrogen and helium gas.” The First Candidate To Meet All The Conditions For Population III Stars The study argues that LAP1-B is the first candidate that meets the three critical conditions for Population III stars: It formed in a low-metallicity environment with temperatures suitable for star formation, it contains only a few big stars in a low-mass cluster, and it conforms to mathematical models for how star masses were distributed in the first generation of stars. “It’s exciting,” said Visbal. “We’ve been working on theoretical models of these stars for a long time, so to now be on the precipice of perhaps direct detections is very exciting.” Previous Population III candidates identified by the James Webb telescope, including stars in the galaxy GN-z11, which were widely reported on in March 2024, are still considered very old. But it’s now believed that these prior candidates don’t fit all the conditions required to classify them as Population III. NAOJAnother artist’s rendering of Population III stars. The latest discovery was made possible by the James Webb Space Telescope’s 21-foot mirror and its capabilities for infrared observations. The telescope detected emission lines originally released as ultraviolet light but later stretched into infrared wavelengths by the universe’s expansion over time. The researchers acknowledged that confirming LAP1-B’s nature will require additional observations. In addition, the cluster appears to have a companion system, LAP1-A, possibly located within the same dark matter halo, which may be worth a much closer look in the future. In the study, the team also suggested that future observations could detect additional Population III systems from the earliest times in cosmic history, providing deeper insights into how the first celestial bodies emerged across the universe. “When we study Population III stars, we learn about the building blocks of our modern-day galaxies,” Visbal said. “They can tell us about how the universe evolved.” After learning about how astronomers may have found the universe’s first stars, see some of the most remarkable images ever captured by the Hubble Space Telescope. Then, discover some incredible facts about space. The post The James Webb Space Telescope May Have Just Located Some Of The First Stars In The Universe appeared first on All That's Interesting.

Elizaveta Romashkina/Russian Academy of SciencesArchaeologists found numerous pieces of medieval ceramics at the sunken city found in Lake Issyk-Kul. Archaeologists have discovered the remains of a medieval city submerged beneath the surface of Lake Issyk-Kul in eastern Kyrgyzstan. The most recent expeditions began in the fall of 2025, focusing on the flooded Toru-Aygyr complex in the northwestern part of the lake. There, archaeologists found a medieval necropolis, large ceramic vessels, and parts of a building made of baked bricks, which may have been a mosque or a bathhouse. Lake Issyk-Kul, which is the eighth deepest lake in the world, once sat along the Silk Road, and this now-sunken city was likely once an important stop along the route. However, at the beginning of the 15th century, a large earthquake caused the city to sink into the lake, where its remains sit to this day. The Sunken Remains Of A Medieval City Found In Kyrgyzstan’s Lake Issyk-Kul Russian Academy of SciencesArchaeologists uncovered the remains of multiple structures, including a Muslim necropolis from the 13th or 14th century. The expedition covered four sections of the lake, at depths ranging from about three feet to 13 feet, according to a statement from the Russian Geographical Society, whose grant funded the project. In the first section, archaeologists found several fire-brick buildings. One included a millstone used for crushing and grinding flour or grits. They also found a building that was used as either a mosque, a bathhouse, or a madrasa, an Islamic school. Alongside these buildings, archaeologists uncovered several stone structures and wooden beams. The beams are being sent for radiocarbon dating and dendrochronological analysis to determine the age of the materials. In the second section, archaeologists discovered a 13th- or 14th-century Muslim necropolis, which had been heavily eroded by the lake’s salt water. “In the 13th century, under the influence of the Golden Horde, Islam became widespread in the region,” said expedition head Maksim Menshikov. “Probably, the necropolis that we discovered at the bottom of the lake is connected with this period.” Archaeologists also uncovered burials near the necropolis, all carried out in the Islamic tradition with the skeletons pointed north and their faces turned toward the holy Kaaba in Mecca. Two skeletons that were found buried in this fashion, one of a man and one of a woman, have been recovered and will undergo comprehensive analysis. The third section of the lake that was explored held several medieval ceramics, while the fourth section contained round and rectangular structures made of mudbrick. Uncovering The History Of The Settlement That Once Stood Along Lake Issyk-Kul Denis Davydov/Russian Academy of SciencesArchaeologists from the Lake Issyk-Kul expedition: Ekaterina Lameykina (in pink T-shirt) and Kristina Guseynova (middle), with diver Elizaveta Romashkina. This medieval city was located along the Silk Road, an important route for travelers and traders from East Asia to Europe for hundreds of years during this period. And this newly-explored site likely served as an important stop for traders on their way to or from China. “The site we are studying was a city or a major trading hub on a key section of the Silk Road,” Valery Kolchenko, researcher at the National Academy of Sciences of the Kyrgyz Republic, told Heritage Daily. In order to learn more about the historical context of the city, researchers analyzed medieval documents in addition to carrying out their underwater expeditions. For one, the evidence shows that, in the 10th century, a Turkic dynasty called the Kara-Khanid State began to take power in the region. “People here practiced various religions: pagan Tengrianism, Buddhism, Nestorian Christianity,” Menshikov explained. “The ruling elite often turned to Islam throughout their rule, but this religion became widespread in Central Asia only in the 13th century. Prior to that, Islam was primarily the religion of the nobility and the population involved in active economic activity.” However, any prosperity that this city enjoyed was ultimately brought to a sudden end in the 15th century, when a devastating earthquake caused it to sink into the waters of Lake Issyk-Kul. “After the earthquake disaster, the region’s population changed drastically,” Kolchenko said, “and the rich medieval settlement civilization ceased to exist.” After reading about the remains of the medieval city beneath Lake Issyk-Kul, see the massive 6th-century statue found by a potato farmer in Kyrgyzstan. Then, learn about the mammoth remains that workers found in the Issyk-Kul region. The post Divers Just Found A Sunken Medieval City In An Enormous Lake In The Mountains Of Eastern Kyrgyzstan appeared first on All That's Interesting.

Louise Reily/Australian MuseumThe fossils containing Telmatomyia talbragarica. A lifetime of amateur fossil hunting has led to the discovery of a new species of non-biting midge — a small type of fly — that lived roughly 151 million years ago. Robert Beattie, an 82-year-old retired teacher, has had a fascination with fossils ever since he was a child. Over the years, he’s donated numerous specimens to the Australian Museum, including prehistoric fish and insects found in fossil beds across the country. But one particular set of fossils from the Talbragar Fish Beds site in New South Wales recently caught the attention of scientists. A closer examination of these specimens revealed that Beattie had brought them something truly extraordinary: the oldest non-biting midge fossil ever found in the Southern Hemisphere, which just happened to be a previously unknown species. The results of their study have now been published in the journal Gondwana Research. Robert Beattie’s Lifelong Fascination With Fossils It took the museum’s paleontologists years to identify the new species, but for Beattie, the discovery was the result of a lifetime of fossil hunting. Back in 1948, when he was just a boy, Beattie was vacationing with his family in New South Wales when he came upon a shell embedded in a rock. He soon learned that this rock was actually a Permian fossil that was hundreds of millions of years old. “I couldn’t believe it,” Beattie told The Guardian. “I’ve been interested in fossils ever since.” Salty Dingo/Australian MuseumRobert Beattie, the man who found the fossils. Beattie has visited countless dig sites throughout his life, scouring Australia’s eastern states for prehistoric relics. In the 1960s, he studied paleontology at Macquarie University and then spent his professional life working as a science and agriculture teacher before retiring at the age of 59. Throughout it all, he had been working with the Australian Museum, providing the institution with specimens he found. After retiring, Beattie immersed himself in his passion for fossil hunting even further. But it was a 2016 conference in Scotland that prompted the research that would define his career. Beattie gave a presentation in Edinburgh on some tiny insects he’d discovered at Talbragar, a fossil site in the central tablelands of New South Wales. In attendance was Dr. Viktor Baranov, a paleontologist at the Doñana Biological Station in Spain who happened to know a thing or two about the insects. “You know those things you had up on the screen?” he asked Beattie. “They are midges.” Four years later, Baranov visited the Australian Museum to take a closer look at Beattie’s fossils. The subsequent years of work would ultimately challenge long-held scientific assumptions about the evolution of prehistoric midges. Talbragar Midge Fossils Point To Origins In The Southern Hemisphere In the new research paper, Baranov and his colleagues identified the midges found in Beattie’s fossils as a new species, giving it the name Telmatomyia talbragarica (meaning “fly from the stagnant waters”). The specimens date to the Jurassic period and belong to the Podonominae subfamily of midges. “Robert collected these fossils over about a 10-year period,” said study co-author Dr. Matthew McCurry of the Australian Museum. “We really didn’t understand the importance until we started studying them quite recently.” Louise Reily/Australian MuseumMatthew McCurry with the Australian Museum’s fossil collection. For years, scientists assumed these freshwater insects evolved in the Northern Hemisphere, largely because the oldest known fossils were found in regions like China and Siberia — parts of the prehistoric supercontinent Laurasia. Notably, Beattie’s specimens were the oldest ever found in the Southern Hemisphere, which may challenge the assumed narrative of how they evolved. Researchers also stated that the age and location of the fossils provide compelling evidence for the theory that midges originated from the southern supercontinent Gondwana, not Laurasia. “We’re putting so much more effort into finding fossils in the Northern Hemisphere — that results in biases in our understanding of the past as well,” McCurry said. Telmatomyia talbragarica helps correct this long-standing geographical skew in paleontological research, he said. This find suggests that when researchers actively investigate sites in the Southern Hemisphere, they often yield discoveries that challenge the established record. After reading about the discovery of this prehistoric midge, learn about a more modern fly, the damselfly. Then, discover seven insects that will give you nightmares. The post An Amateur Fossil Hunter Has Discovered A Previously Unknown Insect Species That Lived 151 Million Years Ago appeared first on All That's Interesting.

From Childless Swagger to McNugget Surrender: A Humbled Parent Eats His 2019 Tweet