Overview
Tonight’s skies serve a smile, rockets and AI march on, and watchdog energy rises. A rare Moon-Saturn-Neptune line-up has people looking up, SpaceX shows off a lighter Raptor engine, and developers weigh local coding agents against platform rules. Meanwhile, eye-watering fraud claims in Minnesota and Los Angeles spark new calls for oversight. Culture keeps the timeline busy too, from a secret mall flat on Netflix to The Office in Fortnite, sharp political satire, a priest who DJs, and a Trump countdown clip.
The big picture
First, the cosmos - both near and far.
A smile in the twilight: Moon, Saturn and Neptune align
Astronomy feeds the feed tonight as a waxing crescent Moon pairs with Saturn, with Neptune tucked in for the rare triple conjunction. Most people will see the Moon and Saturn making a gentle grin after sunset in the west, while Neptune is too faint without binoculars. Early shots and the “Cheshire Conjunction” nickname are already everywhere. 🔗 Post link
A lone black hole roams the Milky Way
Years of microlensing data firm up an isolated black hole sighting, a wandering remnant not tied to a star. The clip doing the rounds uses generic CGI, but the science story is solid and striking. 🔗 Post link
From space to the machines that go there.
Raptor 3 pares mass and parts in pursuit of reuse
New test footage highlights SpaceX’s Raptor 3 engine with a clean ignition, tight gimbal control and a design that ditches a traditional heat shield. Minor leaks are meant to burn off in hot exhaust, which trims mass to around 1,525 kg while aiming at about 280 tons of thrust and roughly 350 s specific impulse. Tests up to 350 bar point to sturdier margins and a payload lift over earlier versions as Starship edges toward higher cadence reuse. 🔗 Post link
Coders got two different notes on the same theme - control.
Claude Code, local and free with open source models
A short tutorial shows how to run a Claude Code style terminal agent on your own kit via Ollama. It uses open source models for private tool workflows, is slower than cloud, and wants strong GPUs, yet it can still knock out small projects like a Python snake game. People are testing qwen3-coder and similar options, with context limits the main snag. 🔗 Post link
OpenAI tees up Codex launches, pushes security bar higher
Sam Altman trails a wave of Codex releases, including coding tools tied into mainstream IDEs, and says the company is moving toward the High tier in its cybersecurity framework. Replies split between safety tactics that feel blunt and frustration over model changes that upset developers who still want 4o routes. 🔗 Post link
Money and oversight follow.
“400 Medicaid businesses” in one Minneapolis building
Dr Oz and HHS Deputy Secretary Jim O’Neill tour a former linen factory packed with hundreds of Medicaid billers, citing about $380 million in claims and urging tougher checks. The visit sits inside a broader probe where CMS has already held back funds and signalled bigger losses across the state. 🔗 Post link
A second clip turns up the heat on the same site
Another viral video casts the building as a fraud hub and pulls in the earlier Feeding Our Future saga. Replies swing into politics and calls for bounty-style audits and stronger penalties. 🔗 Post link
Los Angeles homeless funds, and a $23 million fraud charge
Federal agents arrested Alexander Soofer, accused of steering money meant to shelter more than 600 people into luxury buys from property to cars and private schools. The case lands amid rising state spend and a string of probes into how grant money is screened and tracked. 🔗 Post link
Culture, comedy and the nostalgia economy round out the timeline.
Secret Mall Apartment lands on Netflix
The early 2000s tale of artists living in a hidden flat inside Providence Place Mall returns as a documentary, cut from years of footage that captured a mix of wit, logistics and rule-bending. 🔗 Post link
Michael and Dwight drop into Fortnite
Epic’s new crossover adds The Office skins and emotes, timed with a fresh chapter update and weeks of rumours. Memes and requests for Jim and Pam followed within minutes. 🔗 Post link
Lewis MacLeod’s pitch-perfect Trump
A clip from An Evening with Private Eye 2025 shows a Trump bit so exact that people did double takes. The sketch riffs on dealmaker bravado and hits current nerves. 🔗 Post link
Trump plugs a Melania documentary with a hard countdown
A seven-day timer fuels interest for Melania: Twenty Days to History, with snappy clips and cross-posts building a simple hype cycle. 🔗 Post link
A Portuguese priest builds a flock as a DJ
Father Guilherme Peixoto learned on YouTube in his 40s and now mixes club nights with Mass, drawing big online followings and a debate about modern outreach. 🔗 Post link
Why it matters
Shared moments like tonight’s crescent smile spark curiosity and calm in a feed that skews loud. Pairing that with a roaming black hole reminds us that discovery often sits in long, careful datasets, not just viral clips.
Raptor 3’s weight cuts and higher test pressures point to sturdier reuse and cheaper tonnes to orbit. If the gains hold in flight, Starship’s economics change, and so does what gets built in space.
Local coding agents show a push toward privacy, cost control and independence. At the same time, OpenAI’s updates and model churn highlight a trust gap. Tool builders want clarity on safety rules and stable routes, or they will shift their stacks offline.
Fraud stories erode support for social programmes and delay care for people who need it. Concentrated billing, light vetting and weak audits are all fixable with tighter data checks, random site visits and faster clawbacks - boring, unglamorous work that pays off.
Culture keeps attention moving. Nostalgia crossovers keep games sticky, documentaries reframe old urban myths, sharp satire travels fast, and political countdowns turn feeds into trailers. Even a DJ priest shows how institutions are testing fresh channels to reach younger crowds.
