Inside Coachella 2024's biggest moments

Coachella 2024 has officially wrapped after two back-to-back weekends of partying in the desert. No Doubt performed on both weekends, bringing out a surprise guest during their first show. Other celebrities also made headlines, including Kid Cudi and Doja Cat. Here are the top five moments from Coachella.

1. No Doubt brings out surprise guest

No Doubt played on both Saturdays of the music festival. The band, led by Gwen Stefani, hadn’t performed together in nearly 10 years and sang their greatest hits like “Just A Girl,” and “Don’t Speak.” During their first performance, on April 13, they brought out Olivia Rodrigo for their song “Bathwater.”

Rodrigo, 21, posted about the momentous occasion on social media, saying it was “the coolest honor” to perform with the band. “I remember hearing bathwater for the first time when I had just started writing songs. it totally turned my world on its head and inspires me to this day,” she wrote.

Gwen Stefani of No Doubt and Olivia Rodrigo perform at the Coachella Stage during the 2024 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival at Empire Polo Club on April 13, 2024 in Indio, California.

John Shearer/Getty Images for No Doubt

During the second weekend, which kicked off on April 19, the band didn’t bring out any special guests – but Stefani had some waiting for her back stage. She was seen on the Coachella live stream embracing husband Blake Shelton and her 10-year-old son, Apollo, after the show.

2. Doja Cat makes history

Doja Cat, 28, headlined both Sunday shows, becoming the first Black female rapper to do so in the festival’s 25-year history. In 2018 Beyonce became the first Black female artist to headline Coachella.

Doja Cat, whose real name is Amala Ratna Zandile Dlamini, sang her hits like “Paint The Town Red” and her new single “MASC” and brought out South African a cappella group The Joy to sing her song “Shutcho.”

21 Savage and Doja Cat perform at the Coachella Stage during the 2024 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival at Empire Polo Club on April 14, 2024 in Indio, California.

Arturo Holmes/Getty Images for Coachella

She also brought out A$AP Rocky and 21 Savage. Sticking with her signature avante garde style, she wore long flowing hair and had hairy backup dancers for one of her performances.

Doja Cat performs at the Coachella Stage during the 2024 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival at Empire Polo Club on April 21, 2024 in Indio, California.

Frazer Harrison/Getty Images for Coachella

3. Kid Cudi breaks his foot

Kid Cudi performed during the festival on April 21, but his energetic performance ended abruptly. The rapper, 40, needed to be carried away by security after jumping off the stage. His performance was cut short, according to Entertainment Tonight, and he later confirmed his injury on social media.

“Hey guys, so I broke my foot today at the show. just leavin the hospital,” he wrote. “Never broken a bone before so this is all a bit crazy. nI wanna thank u all for ur concerns and well wishes!!  I love yall man.  I heard yall still ragin when I was offstage.  Made me smile big.”

4. Lana Del Rey enters on a motorcycle

Lana Del Rey headlined the Friday shows, entering the venue on a motorcycle – and clips of the epic entrance went viral on social media. The singer performed hits like “Summertime Sadness” and “Young and Beautiful.” She also brought out Billie Eilish, Jon Batiste and Jack Antonoff, a frequent collaborator.

Her set, however, may have been too long. The City of Indio, where Coachella takes place, will fine the music festival $28,000 for breaking the city’s curfew after Del Rey’s set went 13 minutes over last week, TMZ first reported. CBS News has reached out to the City of Indio for more information and is awaiting response.

5. Tyler the Creator’s special guests and Odd Future reunion

Tyler the Creator, who headlined the Saturday shows, brought out Donald Glover – aka Childish Gambino – and A$AP Rocky to perform with him during the first weekend. He also invited Earl Sweatshirt out on weekend two. The pair were part of the music collective Odd Future, a group of rappers and hip hop artists who collaborated together from 2007 to 2016.

Tyler, the Creator performs at the Coachella Stage during the 2024 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival at Empire Polo Club on April 13, 2024 in Indio, California.

Arturo Holmes/Getty Images for Coachella

Other performers also brought out special guests, including Renee Rapp, who brought out Kesha to sing her 2010 song “Tik Tok.”

Some famous faces were seen in the crowd at the festival – including Taylor Swift and Rihanna.

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Caitlin O’Kane

Caitlin O’Kane is a New York City journalist who works on the CBS News social media team as a senior manager of content and production. She writes about a variety of topics and produces “The Uplift,” CBS News’ streaming show that focuses on good news.

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Malaysian Navy Helicopters Collide Midair, Killing 10

Two Malaysian Navy helicopters collided midair during a training session in the northwestern state of Perak on Tuesday, killing all 10 people on board, at least the second accident involving government aircraft in the Southeast Asian country in as many months.

The two helicopters were rehearsing for Saturday’s 90th anniversary celebration of the Royal Malaysian Navy when they crashed into each other at 9:32 a.m., the navy said in a statement.

The 10 people on board the two helicopters were all crew and died at the scene, at the naval base in Lumut, the navy said.

Videos published by Malaysian news media showed the two helicopters crashing in midair and then various aircraft parts spiraling out of the sky.

“The nation mourns the heart-wrenching and soul-destroying tragedy involving the crash of the two helicopters at Lumut TLDM Base today,” Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said in a statement on social media, referring to the Malaysian abbreviation for the Royal Malaysian Navy.

Malaysia’s king, Sultan Ibrahim, said he was “deeply saddened over the loss of national heroes in this tragedy.”

The navy said it would investigate the cause of the collision. It asked the public not to circulate the video of the accident to protect the privacy of the family members involved. The defense minister, Khaled Nordin, told reporters that the authorities could consider delaying the anniversary celebration in the wake of the tragedy.

Last month, four people were rescued after a Malaysian coast guard helicopter crashed in the Strait of Malacca.

Tashny Sukumaran contributed reporting.

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Justice Dept. Reaches $138.7 Million Settlement Over FBI’s Failures in Nassar Case

The Justice Department said on Tuesday it would pay $138.7 million to resolve 139 claims by young women, including many top female gymnasts, of abuse by the former U.S.A. Gymnastics doctor Lawrence G. Nassar.

The far-reaching settlement, which had been expected, stems from the failure of Federal Bureau of Investigation officials to promptly investigate credible claims that Mr. Nassar had sexually assaulted more than 150 women and girls under the guise of examinations and treatment.

It likely marks the end of a yearslong effort by the gymnasts — including the Olympic gold medalists Simone Biles, McKayla Maroney and Aly Raisman — to achieve a measure of justice and public recognition that the institutions entrusted to protect young female athletes failed to protect them.

While lawyers for the young women hailed the settlement, they cast the government’s monetary compensation for its early reluctance to fully investigate Mr. Nassar as a case of too little, too late.

“These women were assaulted because of the F.B.I.’s failure and there is no amount of money that will make them whole again,” said Mick Grewal, a lawyer for 44 of the claimants, including one who died by suicide. “Their goal with all this was to make sure that this never happens again.”

Mr. Grewal said he hoped the deal would “close the book on this and this will help lead them on the path to healing.”

The broad outlines of the agreement were reached late last year. The lawyers have spent months determining the specific payouts, which vary based on the abuse claims but amount to around $1 million per woman or girl, according to two people familiar with the discussions.

Mr. Nassar is serving a 60-year sentence in federal prison in Florida, where he was stabbed multiple times by an inmate in July. He suffered a collapsed lung but survived his injuries.

For victims like Alexis Hazen, who said she was abused by Mr. Nassar from age 12 to 18, a resolution was a long time coming. She reported the abuse in 2016 and she is now 26, married and a mother of three boys.

“I’m relieved but disappointed that no one person is being held accountable for failing to report the abuse and for sweeping it under the rug,” Ms. Hazen said in a telephone interview. “In a way, this helps me be able to move past this, but it’s always in the back of my mind that, wow, if the F.B.I. didn’t protect me, could something like this happen to my children? And that makes me really, really mad.”

“I definitely have no trust in that institution anymore,” she added.

The settlement comes two and a half years after senior F.B.I. officials publicly admitted that agents had failed to take quick action when U.S. national team athletes complained about Mr. Nassar to the bureau’s Indianapolis field office in 2015.

Mr. Nassar, known for working with Olympians and college athletes, has been accused of abusing more than 150 women and girls over the years.

“These allegations should have been taken seriously from the outset. While these settlements won’t undo the harm Nassar inflicted, our hope is that they will help give the victims of his crimes some of the critical support they need to continue healing,” said Benjamin C. Mizer, an acting associate attorney general, who negotiated the settlement.

In 2018, Michigan State University, which employed Mr. Nassar, paid more than $500 million into a victim compensation fund, believed to be the largest settlement by a university in a sexual abuse case. Three years later, U.S.A. Gymnastics and the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee reached a $380 million settlement.

Many of the girls and women who reported abuse by Mr. Nassar have battled mental health issues, including anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, and some have attempted suicide.

A 2021 report by the Justice Department’s inspector general found that senior F.B.I. officials in the Indianapolis field office had failed to respond to the allegations “with the utmost seriousness and urgency that they deserved and required” and that the investigation did not proceed until after the news media detailed Mr. Nassar’s abuse.

F.B.I. officials in the office also “made numerous and fundamental errors when they did respond” to the allegations and failed to notify state or local authorities of the allegations or take other steps to address the threat posed by Mr. Nassar, the inspector general’s report said.

In heart-wrenching testimony two months later, former members of the national gymnastics team described how the F.B.I. had turned a blind eye to Mr. Nassar’s abuse as the investigation stalled and children suffered. Some, including Ms. Raisman, said that agents moved slowly to investigate even after they presented the bureau with graphic evidence of his actions.

The revelations prompted an extraordinary apology from the F.B.I. director, Christopher A. Wray, who did not oversee the bureau when the investigation began. “I am sorry that so many people let you down over and over again, and I am especially sorry that there were people at the F.B.I. who had their own chance to stop this monster back in 2015,” he said.

The settlement is one of several that the Justice Department has reached over the past decade.

The others have involved victims of mass shootings. Families of 26 people killed in a 2017 shooting at a church in Texas received $144.5 million. The mass shooting in 2018 at a high school in Parkland, Fla.resulted in the Justice Department paying families $127.5 million.

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Gaza War Live Updates: Israel Would Expand Safe Zone if It Attacks Rafah

An Israeli military official has said that if an invasion were to begin in the southern Gaza city Rafah, where a million displaced Palestinians are sheltering, an Israeli-designated “humanitarian zone” along the coast would be expanded to take in more civilians.

The comments are among the first indications of the Israeli military’s plans for civilians in case of a major ground maneuver in Rafah, which the Biden administration has urged Israel to forgo because of the risks it would pose to displaced Palestinians.

Palestinians who have sought shelter in Rafah have been bracing for an Israeli incursion for months, huddling in crowded tents, schools and apartments. Many have followed Israeli calls to evacuate only to encounter bombardment in those places too.

Israeli officials have repeatedly said that the army will enter Rafah to fight Hamas battalions there, bucking international pressure to back off any operation.

In the case of an invasion, Israel would tell Palestinians to go to the enlarged “humanitarian zone,” a narrow strip of beachside land known as Al-Mawasiand other unidentified areas in Gaza, said the military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

It was unclear how much Israel would expand Al-Mawasi but the area is already packed with people. Satellite imagery from Planet Labs revealed a significant increase in the number of people there over the last few months: An aerial image from Sunday shows tent encampments occupying land that had been empty in mid-January.

Sandra Rasheed, the director of the Jerusalem office of Anera, a relief group, said Israel hadn’t told it of an imminent operation in Rafah, but the organization had located a shelter for its staff members and their families to relocate to in Al-Mawasi. United Nations officials also said they hadn’t been informed by Israel of an impending invasion.

Israel’s military first said Gaza’s residents should move to Al-Mawasi in mid-October, and it reiterated that demand in December when it issued evacuation orders for the nearby city of Khan Younis and told residents to head to Al-Mawasi and some areas in Rafah.

Satellite imagery also appeared to show a new cluster of hundreds of tents being built west of Khan Younis. Imagery taken on Thursday shows more than 100 tents in the area, while imagery captured on Sunday shows more than 400 in the complex.

Israel has come under increasing international pressure to allow more aid to enter Gaza and the official did not say how much more aid would be brought to Al-Mawasi. Mohammed al-Hassi, 48, a medic sheltering in Al-Mawasi, said the area was overflowing with displaced people, and worried another influx would make conditions worse.

“There aren’t enough bathrooms, there isn’t enough clean water, and there isn’t enough space,” he said. “The existing infrastructure can barely handle the number of people already here.”

Rafah is on the border with Egypt, but with Egypt allowing hardly any Gazans to enter, there are few clear options for moving large numbers of civilians out of the city. Earlier this month, Jamie McGoldrick, then a senior U.N. humanitarian official in Jerusalem, said that an Israeli invasion of Rafah could force hundreds of thousands of people to try to flee for points north, a risky journey across bombed-out roads littered with unexploded ordnance.

The Biden administration has repeatedly urged Israel to hold off on a major military assault on Rafah, including in a virtual meeting last week. During that meeting, the American side evaluated options for the attack presented by Israel but was not convinced that those plans met Mr. Biden’s insistence that any operation be calibrated to minimize civilian casualties, according to a White House statement.

Israel has frequently encouraged Palestinians to seek shelter in Al-Mawasi, but the area has been struck by the Israeli army several times, according to Palestinians in the area. Israel has accused militants of firing rockets from Al-Mawasi.

“There’s no safe place,” Mr. Hassi said. “I’m someone with no hostility toward Israel or anyone in the world, but I can’t guarantee that the building, the land, or the car I’m next to won’t be targeted.

In Rafah, Rajab al-Sindawi, a secondhand clothing salesman who fled there from Gaza City in the north, said he was feeling anxious as he, his wife and seven children squeezed into a small tent on a sidewalk.

“The people are all waiting to hear how they will move us,” he said.

Lauren Leatherby contributed reporting to this article.

— Adam Rasgon reporting from Jerusalem

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Eric Church talks new Nashville bar and residency

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Country music star Eric Church has had a standout year, marked by the opening of his new bar, restaurant and venue called “Chief’s” in Nashville. In addition to launching this highly-anticipated spot, Church is playing a 19-show residency there.

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The TikTok ban was just passed by the House. Here's what could happen next.

TikTok users could soon find that the popular social media service is either under new ownership or, although it wouldn’t happen immediately, outright banned in the U.S.

On Saturday, the House passed legislation that would bar TikTok from operating in the U.S. if the popular platform’s China-based owner doesn’t sell its stake within a year. The bill will next head to the Senate, where it is expected to pass, buoyed by its attachment to a larger foreign aid package for Ukraine, Israel and other U.S. allies that has gained bipartisan support.

TikTok has attracted unwanted scrutiny not only for the addictiveness of its constantly scrolling videos, but also due to its Chinese owner, ByteDance. That has raised concerns among lawmakers and security experts that the Chinese government could tap TikTok’s trove of personal data about millions of U.S. users.

Meanwhile, TikTok has asked its users to contact their lawmakers to argue against the bill’s passage, an effort that appears to have failed to sway opinions in Washington, D.C., noted Eurasia Group director Clayton Allen.

TikTok has sent push alerts to users of the social media platform, urging them to contact their lawmakers about a congressional bill that would require its Chinese owner ByteDance to sell it or face a U.S. ban.

Aimee Picchi

As recently as last week, TikTok was sending push notifications to some of its users urging them to reach out to their lawmakers, saying that the bill could “take away YOUR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT to access TikTok.”

“It’s a low-cost exercise if you have access to the user base,” Allen told CBS MoneyWatch. “But it seems like it has backfired.”

Some lawmakers had argued that TikTok’s ability to send bulk push notifications to its users, many of them minors, underscored the risks of the app.

In a statement, TikTok said it is “unfortunate” that lawmakers are “using the cover of important foreign and humanitarian assistance to once again jam through a ban bill that would trample the free speech rights of 170 million Americans, devastate 7 million businesses, and shutter a platform that contributes $24 billion to the U.S. economy, annually.”

Here’s what to know about what could happen next to the TikTok bill.

When will the Senate vote on the TikTok bill?

The Senate is expected to take up the bill as early as Tuesday, although the vote could come on Wednesday, said CBS News congressional correspondent Scott MacFarlane.

The clock is ticking on a crucial 24 hours for TikTok, as a bill that could lead to the app being banned in the U.S. is now racing through Congress.@MacFarlaneNews has the latest as the Senate prepares to vote on the bill: pic.twitter.com/VdRT2knKY6

— CBS News (@CBSNews) April 22, 2024

President Joe Biden has indicated he would sign the bill, which is primarily focused on providing foreign aid to Ukraine and Israel.

Why does Congress want to ban TikTok?

Actually, lawmakers want ByteDance to sell its stake in TikTok. Barring such a deal, the legislation would, in fact, ban the social media app in the U.S.

Lawmakers are increasingly concerned about the company’s ties in China, with fears that ByteDance or TikTok could share data about U.S. users with China’s authoritarian government.

“The idea that we would give the Communist Party this much of a propaganda tool, as well as the ability to scrape 170 million Americans’ personal data, it is a national security risk,” Senator Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat, said on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” on Sunday.

What is the timeline for a possible TikTok sale or shutdown?

If passed, the bill would give TikTok’s owner nine months to arrange a sale, with the potential for an additional three-month grace period, according to a copy of the bill released earlier this month.

But, Allen of Eurasia Group noted, that would put the nine-month mark in mid- to late January, which could also coincide with the U.S. presidential inauguration. If former President Donald Trump wins in November, he could very well take a different tack with TikTok, the analyst noted.

“This might become a question for the next administration,” Allen said. “Looking at the language of the bill, I’m not sure Trump would be as bound to pursue what the Biden administration would want. He could use it as a point of leverage with China.”

If TikTok is sold, who might buy it?

Likely bidders include Microsoft, Oracle or private equity groups, according to Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives. Former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin also told CNBC in March that he planned to assemble an investment group to bid for TikTok.

However, Ives thinks ByteDance would be unlikely to sell TikTok with its core algorithms, the vital software that provides video recommendations to users based on their interests and viewing habits.

“The value of TikTok would dramatically change without the algorithms and makes the ultimate sale/divestiture of TikTok a very complex endeavor, with many potential strategic/financial bidders waiting anxiously for this process to kick off,” Ives said in a research note.

Could other social media platforms benefit from the bill?

Rivals such as Meta could benefit from the bill if it becomes a law, Ives noted.

Wedbush estimates that roughly 60% of TikTok users would shift to Meta’s Instagram and Facebook if TikTok went dark in the U.S. Google would also benefit, he added.

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Aimee Picchi

Aimee Picchi is the associate managing editor for CBS MoneyWatch, where she covers business and personal finance. She previously worked at Bloomberg News and has written for national news outlets including USA Today and Consumer Reports.

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Google Explains A Weird Domain Migration Outcome

Google’s John Mueller offered an insight into why the domain name migrations between multiple language versions of the same website turned out vastly different even though the same process was followed for each of three websites.

Migrating To Different Domain Names

The person asking the question maintained three websites under three different country code top level domains (ccTLDs). The ccTLDs were .fr (France), .be (Belgium), and .de (Germany). The project was a migration from one domain name to another domain name, each within their respective ccTLD, like example-1.fr to example-2.fr.

Each site had the same content but in different languages that corresponded to the countries targeted by each of their respective ccTLD. Thus, because everything about the migration was equal the reasonable expectation was that the outcome of the migration would be the same for each site.

But that wasn’t the case.

Two out of the three site migrations failed and lost traffic. Only one of them experienced a seamless transition.

What Went Wrong?

The person asking for information about what went wrong tweeted:

“Hi @JohnMu,

AlicesGarden (.fr, .be, .de …) migrated to Sweeek (.fr, .be, .de …)

.FR and .BE lost a lot of traffic in Oct. 23

Other TLD performed well.

Redirects, canonical, hreflang, content, offer = OK
Search console migration = OK

What else could be wrong ?”

Original tweet:

Hi @JohnMu,

AlicesGarden (.fr, .be, .de …) migrated to Sweeek (.fr, .be, .de …)

.FR and .BE lost a lot of traffic in Oct. 23
Other TLD performed well.

Redirects, canonical, hreflang, content, offer = OK
Search console migration = OK

What else could be wrong ? pic.twitter.com/95qRoaZzbL

— Quentin Adt (@Quentin_Adt) April 16, 2024

John Mueller Tweets His Response

Google’s John Mueller responded that each site is a different site and should be regarded as differently even if they share the same content assets (in different languages) between them.

Mueller tweeted:

“I don’t know your sites, but even if the content’s the same, they’re essentially different sites (especially with ccTLDs), so it would be normal for a migration to affect them differently (and this seems to be quite a way back in the meantime).”

Here is his tweet:

I don’t know your sites, but even if the content’s the same, they’re essentially different sites (especially with ccTLDs), so it would be normal for a migration to affect them differently (and this seems to be quite a way back in the meantime).

— John 🧀 … 🧀 (@JohnMu) April 23, 2024

Are Site Migrations Essentially Equal?

John makes an important observation. It may very well be that how a site fits into the Internet may be affected by a site migration, especially by how users may respond to a change in template or a domain name. I’ve done domain name migrations and those have gone well with a temporary slight dip. But that was just one domain name at a time, not multiple domains.

What Might Be Going On?

Someone in that discussion tweeted to ask if they had used AI content.

The person asking the original question tweeted their response:

“Yes a bit of AI for short description, mainly in category pages, but nothing which could be deceptive from an end-user perspective.”

Could it be that the two of the site migrations failed and a third was successful because they coincidentally overlapped with an update? Given that the extent of AI content was trivial it’s probably unlikely.

The important takeaway is what Mueller said, that they’re all different sites and so the outcome should naturally be different.

Featured Image by Shutterstock/William Barton

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Endangered species are dying out on Earth. Could they be saved in outer space?

Plants and animals are dying off at an unprecedented rate on Earth. Some scientists are looking to outer space for a solution.

The idea is called a lunar biorepository, a facility that maintains and stores plant and animal cells. But instead of on Earth, this would be on the moon.

Why the moon?

“There’s no place on Earth cold enough to do it,” explained Mary Hagedorn, a senior research scientist with the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute.

Hagedorn has spent the last two decades studying and theorizing modern ways to try and save coral reefs. She is an expert in cryopreservation, the process of freezing biological materials like animal cells at a temperature so cold, it allows them to remain frozen but alive for hundreds of years.

“Let’s imagine that, unfortunately, climate change wiped out 90% of the Great Barrier Reef. Well, in 100 years, we might be able to just give them back all that diversity,” Hagedorn said.

Her inspiration is the Arctic Svalbard Seed Vault in Norway It is a biorepository that keeps seeds at just under 0 degrees Fahrenheit due to the natural temperature of the permafrost. The low temperature and moisture levels in the vault keep the seeds viable for long periods of time.

“Svalbard has done a really great job of saying, ‘OK, we need to preserve seeds. Everything on Earth depends on seeds. And how are we going to do that?'” Hagedorn said.

Hagedorn and her team want to do something similar for animal cells, but they need colder temperatures. At the lunar poles, where deep craters are shaded, temperatures reach as low as minus 320 degrees Fahrenheit or colder.

Preserving these animal skin cells, called fibroblast cells, allows scientists to transform them into sex cells, which is how they clone animals in labs.

In addition to threatened and endangered animals like the African elephant, green sea turtle and great cats, the team at the Zoo proposes that the lunar biorepository initially include an array of animal species that serve different purposes, including:

• Those that modify their environment, like coral, beavers, woodpeckers and earthworms.
• Pollinators that support the production of food, like bees, moths and bats.
• Animals that live in extremely warm, cold or acidic environments, like monarch butterflies, polar bears and nematodes.
• Organisms that support the web of life on Earth, like zooplankton, boreal trees and mosses.

Cryopreserved human cardiac stem cells have also recently been sent to the International Space Station.

Challenges in space

As a trial, the Zoo collected 10 specimens of the Starry Goby, a fish found in Kane`ohe Bay in Hawaii. The vision is that these cells will be sealed into cryo-packaging and tested under space-like conditions on Earth, followed by a test run on the space station.

How the Smithsonian plans to create cryopreserved cells and test them in space:

Teams at the National Science Foundation’s National Ecological Observatory Network are also collecting nearly 100,000 animal cell samples every year from 81 sites. NEON’s goal is to expand the kinds of cells used in cryopreservation to include sperm and oocytes, which are found in ovaries.

While a lunar biorepository may be a promising idea for preserving Earth’s biodiversity, there are challenges for this program.

Researchers said one of the most difficult problems posed by a lunar biorepository would be the radiation exposure to samples. Countermeasures to radiation could include antioxidant cocktails, as well as providing physical barriers like water, lead or cement to block radiation.

Temperatures on the moon’s surface, which make freezing possible, are also a concern.

Certain areas of the moon can reach more than 200 degrees Fahrenheit during the lunar day, which is equivalent to about 14 days on Earth. The much colder temperatures in the craters of the North and South Poles, could make it difficult to transport biomaterials.

Another challenge is that those areas, known as “permanently shadowed regions,” are believed to have large amounts of ice, conditions that would make human monitoring extremely difficult.

The long-term effects of microgravity on cells could also pose a problem.

Some say seeking a solution on the moon shouldn’t be the No. 1 priority.

“I don’t think it’s right idea for right now,” Noah Greenwald, the endangered species director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said.

“I think we really need to focus on protecting more of the natural world, so we don’t lose species in the first place,” he said.

A decades-long effort

Hagedorn isn’t the only scientist working to create a biorepository on the moon.

In 2021, University of Arizona researchers proposed a concept to send an ark filled with 335 million sperm and egg samples to the moon.

“They’re engineers,” Hagedorn noted. “So, we’re more biologists coming at this. We know how to cryopreserve. We started the sample. But they have a great sense of how to use robots.”

Hagedorn said this is a decades-long effort and that developing a lunar biorepository will require collaboration from an array of nations, agencies, cultural groups and other stakeholders.

Greenwald said while climate change is finally getting the attention it deserves, the extinction crisis is right there with it.

“Species are the building blocks of ecosystems. They clean our air, they clean our water, they moderate our climate, they cycle nutrients. We should all be very concerned because the fact that we’re losing species at such an accelerated rate really reflects the degradation of the ecosystems they we ourselves depend upon,” Greenwald said.

ClimateWatch: Climate Change News & Features

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Alexis Guerrero

Alexis Guerrero is a producer at CBS News Innovation Lab, based in Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas.

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New photo of Prince Louis released to mark 6th birthday

A new photo of Prince Louis was released Tuesday to mark the young British royal’s 6th birthday. It is the first image released by the family since the photo-editing scandal erupted last month.

In the photo, Louis, who is the fourth in line to the British throne behind his father and two older siblings, can be seen lying on a blanket while grinning at the camera. The photo is said to have been taken by his mother Catherine, the Princess of Wales. Kensington Palace has assured that this picture has not been edited.

“Happy 6th Birthday, Prince Louis! Thank you for all the kind wishes today,” said the post accompanying the image shared on Kensington Palace’s social media accounts.

Happy 6th Birthday, Prince Louis! 🎂

Thank you for all the kind wishes today.

📸 The Princess of Wales pic.twitter.com/TxshrI3WKO

— The Prince and Princess of Wales (@KensingtonRoyal) April 23, 2024

The family has typically released photos of the young royals to mark birthdays to news outlets in advance, but this year, with both Kate and her father-in-law King Charles III undergoing cancer treatmentthey took a slightly different approach, posting the image of Louis directly on their official social media accounts on his birthday.

William and Kate, who have requested privacy as they deal with the family’s medical issues, thanked people for their well-wishes in a short message posted with the photo of Louis.

Last month, a controversy erupted after Kensington Palace released a family photo of Kate and her three children on Britain’s Mother’s Day that was edited in numerous places, raising concerns over transparency and honesty.

International photo agencies withdrew the image from their platforms, some even removing Kensington Palace from their list of trusted sources. Kate admitted to editing the photo in a subsequent social media post.

It came at a time when Kate had been out of the public eye for months, recuperating from what the palace said was planned abdominal surgery in January.

In late March, as rumors swirled about her health, Kate announced in a video message that cancer was discovered following her operation and she is undergoing preventative chemotherapy on the advice of her medical team. She did not say what kind of cancer it was or share additional details about her diagnosis.

“This of course came as a huge shock, and William and I have been doing everything we can to process and manage this privately for the sake of our young family,” Kate said in the video message. “As you can imagine, this has taken time. It has taken me time to recover from major surgery in order to start my treatment. But, most importantly, it has taken us time to explain everything to George, Charlotte and Louis in a way that is appropriate for them, and to reassure them that I am going to be OK.”

The family kept a low profile over the Easter school holidays, but William resumed official duties last week.

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Lucia Suarez Sang

Lucia Suarez Sang is an associate managing editor at cbsnews.com. Previously, Lucia was the director of digital content at FOX61 News in Connecticut and has previously written for outlets including FoxNews.com, Fox News Latino and the Rutland Herald.

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