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Science

‘Hamster ball’ robot could explore Moon caves

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If people are going to stay on the Moon for long periods, they’ll need to consider resources below the surface — and a rather unusual robot might just help. The European Space Agency is backing work on DAEDALUS (Descent And Exploration in Deep Autonomy of Lunar Underground Structures), a “hamster ball” robot from Julius-Maximilians-University built to study lunar caves.

The 18.1-inch ball is meant to be lowered from a tether and use a combination of stereoscopic cameras and LiDAR to map underground spaces as it rolls around on its own. A radiation dosimeter and temperature sensors, meanwhile, gauge how hostile these caves are to human life. Extending arms both test lunar rocks and help clear obstacles.

The tether would be useful as a WiFi receiver while the robot works on its own.

DAEDALUS is one cave exploration concept under consideration at the ESA, and there are no guarantees it’ll reach the lunar surface. It could be a vital tool if it does become reality, though. Researchers could find relatively untouched material, including possible water ice. The right caves might even be suitable for Moon settlements, as they could shield against micrometeorites, radiation and extreme temperatures. Explorers might not need to build habitats as elaborate as would be necessary to live above ground.

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Sports

‘Mike got bounce!’ Conley wins late jump ball to help Jazz hold off Memphis rally

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SALT LAKE CITY — On the first play of his long-awaited first All-Star Game, Mike Conley faced up against Chris Paul for the opening tip of the second quarter.

He lost the jump.

“I was not prepared for the tip,” Conley said after that game. “I was told that I was going out there and getting ready to guard somebody and I’m looking back (and the bench said), ‘Mike, go jump.’ I wish I would have won the tip.”

You can now consider that a practice run for a much more important one.

With 1.9 seconds left of Utah’s 117-114 win over Memphis on Friday, Conley lined up against Ja Morant for a jump ball. The stakes were simple: If he got it, the Jazz win. If he lost, the Grizzlies could have one final chance to tie the game.

The Jazz clearly assumed it was gonna be the latter. So much so that there wasn’t a single Jazz player set up behind Conley. Turns out, Conley still has some hops. The veteran point guard rose up and won the tip against the high-flying Morant, and Derrick Favors quickly hustled to get the rebound and secure the win.

“Mike got bounce!” Jordan Clarkson said.

“I haven’t seen Mike jump that high since Ohio State,” added Donovan Mitchell.

Rudy Gobert joked that “Normally I’d tell him to go up quick like me, but I lost mine today, so I couldn’t give him any advice — he wouldn’t take me seriously.”

That final play officially thwarted a furious Grizzlies fourth-quarter rally, giving Utah the first round of a strange scheduling quirk between Memphis. The two teams will play each other three times in four games, with Round 2 coming Saturday at Vivint Arena.

Before the game, the Jazz talked about the strange midseasons series with the Grizzlies. Gobert said was going to be physical, and Georges Niang warned that Memphis wouldn’t go away easily. There wasn’t anything particularly noteworthy about those quotes — just the usual cookie-cutter sayings about an opposing team.

Then the game happened.

The final seconds featured Kyle Anderson trying to sky over Rudy Gobert to get a late pivotal rebound (and getting a lot of body), and Morant trying to pry the ball away from Conley, sending the Jazz point guard to the ground in the process.

Physical? Check.

Never say die? Check and check.

“It’s a real challenge because you’re not gonna be able to stick to just one game plan of beating that team,” Niang said before the game. “The way we guard them tonight is going to be different than the way we guard them tomorrow because teams are smart.”

Memphis better have a new game plan on Saturday in Round 2 because what the Grizzlies were doing against Donovan Mitchell sure didn’t work.

The Jazz All-Star guard had 35 points, six assists and five rebounds. He had it going early, scoring 19 points in the opening half as the Jazz raced out to a big lead. And he had it going late, scoring Utah’s final 10 points to help hold off the Memphis rally.

Utah Jazz guard Mike Conley (10) wins a jump ball against Memphis Grizzlies guard Ja Morant (12) in the final seconds of the game at Vivint Smart Home Arena in Salt Lake City on Friday, March 26, 2021. (Photo: Spenser Heaps, Deseret News)

Speaking of that rally, the Jazz will have some things to work on, too, in the rematch.

Utah (33-11) led by as many as 21 points in the first quarter, looking like the team that ran roughshod through the rest of the league earlier this season. Mitchell had it going, Bojan Bogdanovic had found a rhythm by getting into the paint, and Gobert was finishing everything off the pick and roll.

The Jazz, who are sitting at the top of the NBA standings due to their 3-point prowess, made just six 3-pointers in the first half. Memphis made a concerted effort to take the deep ball away, so Utah went inside.

Gobert had 25 points on 11-of-14 shooting; every one of those shots was within five feet of the hoop.

“They were staying home with shooters, so it was tough to get those kick-outs,” Jazz coach Quin Snyder said.

Gobert has improved as a passer this season and has found success in finding teammates in the corners as he rolls to the rim. With the Grizzlies not coming down to stop him, he simply scored himself.

“When they’re doing a drop coverage and keeping guys on the shooters, it’s usually gonna be a two-on-one every time,” Gobert said.

But after all that had gone well, a 13-5 Memphis run in the final minutes of the game meant the Jazz had to sweat out a final possession.

Dillon Brooks, who had made three straight 3s in the fourth quarter, attempted a game-tying 3 that bounced around and out. Conley went to the floor to secure the rebound but was tied up for a jump ball with 1.9 seconds left.

Conley didn’t lose the jump this time.

“I think it’s a rolling bet in the locker room: we’re still waiting for him to dunk,” Clarkson said. “So we should have put a bet on him winning a jump ball too as well. He wears Jordan — they only sign people that dunk and do stuff like that. I think Mike is the only one that stays on the ground, so hopefully he gets a dunk soon and we win some money on that.”

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Business

Dow Jones Futures: No Crystal Ball For This Market Rally; ARK Sets $3,000 Tesla Stock Price Target, Facebook, Google

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Dow Jones futures will begin trading Sunday evening, along with S&P 500 futures and Nasdaq futures. The stock market rally had a modestly down week, but the Nasdaq showed the most technical damage.




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Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest set a new $3,000 price target on Tesla (TSLA), far above any other Wall Street analyst, as Volkswagen (VWAGY) began China deliveries of its ID.4 crossover.

Facebook (FB), U.S. Steel (X), Wayfair (W), Google parent Alphabet (GOOGL) and Apple supplier Qorvo (QRVO) are among notable stocks near buy points.

Canadian Pacific Railway (CP) agreed to buy Kansas City Southern (KSU) for $25 billion, or $275 a share, in a cash-and-stock deal. That’s a 23% premium to KSU stock’s Friday close.

While investing can get complicated, there are some simple concepts too. You want to invest when the stock market is living above its 21-day exponential moving average and 50-day line. That goes for the major indexes as well as the leading stocks. Right now the stock market is deeply split: The Dow Jones and S&P 500 are living above those levels while the Nasdaq is not.

The split market rally is especially difficult to make progress in.

Facebook stock, Dick’s Sporting Goods (DKS) and Element Solutions (ESI) are above buy points or early entries. Meanwhile, Google stock, Qorvo, U.S. Steel and Wayfair are near buy points.

Google and Dick’s stock are on IBD Leaderboard. Wayfair stock is on the IBD 50.

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Dow Jones Futures Today

Dow Jones futures will open at 6 p.m. ET, along with S&P 500 futures and Nasdaq 100 futures.

Remember that overnight action in Dow futures and elsewhere doesn’t necessarily translate into actual trading in the next regular stock market session.

Join IBD experts as they analyze actionable stocks in the stock market rally on IBD Live.

Coronavirus News

Coronavirus cases worldwide reached 123.55 million. Covid-19 deaths topped 2.72 million.

Coronavirus cases in the U.S. have hit 30.48 million, with deaths above 554,000.

Stock Market Rally Last Week

U.S. Stock Market Today Overview
Index Symbol Price Gain/Loss % Change
Dow Jones (0DJIA) 32628.04 -234.26 -0.71
S&P 500 (0S&P5) 3912.81 -2.65 -0.07
Nasdaq (0NDQC ) 13215.24 +99.07 +0.76
Russell 2000 (IWM) 227.01 +1.77 +0.79
IBD 50 (FFTY) 46.77 +0.42 +0.91
Last Update: 4:06 PM ET 3/19/2021

The stock market rally looked promising early in the week, with the Dow Jones and S&P 500 hitting new highs and the Nasdaq above its 50-day moving average. But late in the week, with Treasury yields soaring and crude oil prices tumbling, the major indexes erased gains and then some.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 0.5% in last week’s stock market trading. The S&P 500 index retreated 0.8%, but held above its 21- and 50-day lines. The Nasdaq composite lost 0.8%, but Thursday’s 3% tumble pushed it below the 21-day and 50-day lines.

The 10-year Treasury yield rose 12 basis points to 1.73%, with nearly all of that on Thursday.

Among the best ETFs, the Innovator IBD 50 ETF (FFTY) retreated 0.5% last week while the Innovator IBD Breakout Opportunities ETF (BOUT) sank 1%, but both held above their 50-day lines. The iShares Expanded Tech-Software Sector ETF (IGV) skidded 2.5%, falling further from its 50-day. The VanEck Vectors Semiconductor ETF (SMH) rose 1.2%, but was unable to hold above its 50-day. Qorvo stock is part of SMH.

Reflecting more-speculative story stocks, ARK Innovation ETF sank 3.1% last week and ARK Genomics ETF 1%, both hitting resistance at their 21-day lines. Tesla stock is the top holding across ARK’s ETFs.

ARK’s $3,000 Tesla Stock Price Target

Late Friday, Cathie Wood’s Ark Investments put out a $3,000 price target on Tesla. That’s includes a $1,500 bear case and $4,000 bull case. In the base scenario, Tesla sells five million cars by 2025, up from just below 500,000 in 2020. EV revenue would skyrocket to $234 billion.

To reach that target, Tesla would need a major increase in auto plants. But, in ARK’s model, the company wouldn’t need any more working capital.

Ark now sees a 50% chance that Tesla will have fully autonomous driving in five years. That would open the door for a vast, highly profitable robotaxi network, in Ark’s scenario. Wood, almost as much as Elon Musk, has consistently overestimated Tesla’s self-driving capabilities and timeline.

Tesla is now testing FSD Beta on public city streets with untrained drivers. But it’s told regulators that Full Self Driving will remain a Level 2 system even after FSD Beta is released broadly. That means a human driver must stay alert and ready to take over. Meanwhile, multiple rivals are actively testing Level 4 systems, which are fully autonomous in a geofenced area, such as San Francisco.

Ark also sees Tesla creating an insurance business that will generate revenue of $23 billion to $100 billion by 2025, with industry-shattering margins. So far Tesla has a limited insurance brokerage business, not an actual insurance business. ARK did not appear to take into account operating expenses, capital requirements, cost of repairs or many other aspects of an actual insurance business.

Tesla stock, since peaking at 900.40 on Jan. 25, has retreated considerably along with other highly value growth names. Shares have rebounded from their March 5 low of 539.49, but have hit resistance at their 21-day line, well below its 50-day line. ARK has added to Tesla stock on the way down, along with many other of its big 2020 winners.

VW ID.4 Deliveries In China

Competition is heating up though. The Volkswagen ID.4 crossover began deliveries in China this weekend after deliveries to U.S. dealers started last week. The VW ID.4 is substantially cheaper than the Tesla Model Y. European deliveries of the ID.3 and ID.4 were very low for much of Q1 due to a long-awaited software fix, but VW expects to sell 500,000 EVs worldwide this year.

VW stock has soared in 2021 in EV hopes, though it tumbled late last week after becoming greatly extended.

Dick’s Stock

Dick’s Sporting Goods stock rose 3.8% to 80.58 on Friday, just moving above an 80.42 buy point. It was a short consolidation that was one day from being a cup base. Volume was average on the breakout, and likely only due to Friday’s quadruple witching. The upward trend in prior days came in light volume. But the base wasn’t filled with lots of high volume selling either. The relative strength line, which tracks a stock’s performance vs. the S&P 500 index, is at a new high. Earnings are out of the way.

Facebook Stock

FB stock popped 4.1% on Friday to 290.11 in heavy volume as CEO Mark Zuckerberg downplayed the impact of Apple‘s (AAPL) new privacy rules on Facebook’s ad business. Facebook stock cleared a 286.89 early entry in heavy volume and is getting close to a 304.77 official buy point. Investors could start a position here, though after a recent run FB stock could pull back and form a handle.

The RS line for FB stock has been lagging for months, but it’s now at a 2021 high.

Element Solutions Stock

The specialty chemicals maker with some tech exposure fell nearly 5% last week to 19.75, just holding above a 19.50 buy point from a breakout earlier this month. ESI stock did find support Friday near that entry and just above the 21-day line. Investors could buy Element Solutions stock at current levels, or perhaps if it broke a trend line in a short consolidation just above the buy point. Clearing that high handle would offer another buy point at 21.09.

Google Stock

Google stock fell 1.1% last week to 2,2026.96, closing slightly below its 21-day line. The FANG stock now has a flat base with a 2,145.24 buy point, according to MarketSmith analysis. But GOOGL stock could rebound from just above its 10-week line. If it clears last week’s high and gets to 2,114, that could provide an early entry from the 10-week.

U.S. Steel Stock

U.S. Steel tumbled 7.3% to 22.41 last week, but that was still constructive action after running up to near the top of a cup base. On a weekly chart, X stock now has a cup-with-handle buy point with a 24.56 buy point. The daily chart shows a 24.81 cup-without-handle entry, but U.S. Steel is on track to have a handle after Monday.

Wayfair Stock

On Friday, Wayfair stock rose 2.9% to 335.36. Intraday, shares hit 348, briefly clearing a 343.09 handle entry. The RS line for Wayfair stock is right at consolidation highs, though off its August peak.

Wayfair stock was Friday’s IBD Stock Of The Day.

The online furniture retailer is in a hot pocket of market strength.

Upscale furniture retailer RH (RH) jumped 6.1% on Friday and 9.2% for the week to 515.64. RH stock has an official buy point of 524.32 but cleared a downtrend and set a closing high. RH stock would be actionable, but earnings are due Wednesday.

Meanwhile, upscale home furnishings and housewares retailer Williams-Sonoma (WSM) surged 29% last week on strong earnings and guidance. WSM stock gapped out of a base Thursday and kept rising Friday.

Qorvo Stock

Qorvo stock rose 4.2% to 179.85 last week, regaining its 50-day line. During the week, the 5G and iPhone chipmaker got as high as 185.96, clearing a couple of early entries, before pulling back. Now clearing last week’s high would serve as an early entry. One upside from using this entry is that if QRVO stock clears it, the Nasdaq stock will likely be retaking its 21-day line, if not its 50-day.

The official buy point is 191.92.

Qorvo earnings growth has accelerated for three straight quarters while revenue growth has picked up for two quarters in a row.

Several other chip stocks are near buy points, including Applied Materials (AMAT), MKS Instruments (MKSI) and Entegris (ENTG).

As for Apple stock, the Dow Jones tech titan dipped 0.9% to 119.99, falling back below its 21-day line and well below its 50-day. AAPL stock hasn’t bounced back much from its March low.

Market Rally Analysis

In general, you want the major indexes and the leading stocks to be living above their 21-day and 50-day moving averages. On Friday, the S&P 500 index and small-cap Russell 2000 found support around their 21-day lines, slightly above their 50-day lines. The Dow Jones never came close to either line.

But the Nasdaq remains below its 21-day and 50-day lines, with Friday’s bounce recovering only part of Thursday’s 3% tumble. Investors should likely wait until the Nasdaq gets back above those moving averages as well as last week’s highs before stepping up tech exposure.

It’s still unclear if the Dow and S&P 500 will pull the Nasdaq up above key levels or whether the Nasdaq will drag down the broader stock market rally. In a market uptrend, stocks are likely to trend higher. But in a half-rally, half-correction environment, it’s hard to get any sense of the true market direction.

As for the leading stocks, real economy and reopening plays made solid gains over the past several weeks. Tech stocks have struggled, with a recent rebound faltering. Many, like Tesla stock, are stuck below their 21-day and 50-day lines.

But in the past week or so, recent breakouts of all stripes have had a bit more trouble, either sluggishly rising, testing buy points or retreating below buy points.

5 IPOs Expecting Up To 425% Growth In 2021

What To Do Now

An investor needn’t make money on half her trades if her winners are big and her losses small. In the current market climate it’s hard to make progress with a low win percentage and those winners achieving slim-to-modest gains.

Investors may want modest exposure, a couple of long-term winners and a couple pilot positions in different sectors, to stay in tune with the market.

But you likely don’t want to be heavily invested, even outside of tech. A choppy market is very difficult. It’s just strong enough to tempt investors to buy — usually at short-term peaks — but weak enough to force stop losses.

In addition to preserving your capital, you want to preserve your psyche. Taking a series of losses in a bad market can make you gun shy when the market shows a clear uptrend and you want to be aggressive.

If you’ve held onto stocks that are living below their 21-day and 50-day lines, you may want to exit, especially if they’ve wedged higher in light volume. If you’re sitting on a stock or two like that with huge gains, you can try to weather the storm, but don’t do that with the bulk of your portfolio.

All that being said, a lot of stocks aren’t far from buy points, such as Wayfair, Qorvo or Google stock. A few good days for the market rally and those stocks may be actionable. So work on your watchlists. Find quality stocks above their key moving averages. Make sure to include stocks in a variety of sectors to be sure you’re staying on top of this shifting market.

Read The Big Picture every day to stay in sync with the market direction and leading stocks and sectors.

Please follow Ed Carson on Twitter at @IBD_ECarson for stock market updates and more.

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Sports

LaMelo Ball lets his play speak for itself against LeBron James, Los Angeles Lakers

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Kyle Kuzma cocked his arm back like a quarterback about to hit a tight end on a go route. His target was LeBron James, and the Los Angeles Lakers ‘ star had a step on LaMelo Ball of the Charlotte Hornets.

Not many defenders in any sport are going to stop James when he gets a step ahead with a head of steam going downhill. But Ball gave it a shot, reaching his arm out behind him to try and slow James down while simultaneously pivoting and sprinting back on defense.

Ball had created the fast-break opportunity by trying to fire the ball past James — who got a hand up and tipped it to Kuzma. So it was Ball’s responsibility to stop it — even if it meant drawing his fifth foul and ending the Hornets’ impressive second-half comeback Thursday night in a 116-105 loss to the Lakers at Staples Center.

But the play spoke volumes about Ball’s mentality in his first NBA game against James. It was, as he’d mentioned earlier in the week, just another game for the talented rookie. Just another first time playing against one of the league’s all-time greats. Just another measuring stick he will learn from.

“It felt good,” Ball said of his first game against James, with whom his statistics in the first 20 starts of his career compare favorably. “But not too good, because we didn’t get the win.”

Thursday was Ball’s 20th career start, and according to ESPN Stats & Information research, Ball has averaged more points (19.8 to 16.5) than James did through the first 20 starts of his career, shooting better from the field (46.8% to 39.9%) and from beyond the 3-point line (43.2% to 31.5%).

Of course, it isn’t a perfect comparison. James started the first 20 games of the 2003 season in Cleveland, while Ball wasn’t moved into the Hornets’ starting lineup until his 20th game this season — Thursday was his 40th career game. James also had the weight of being the unquestioned No. 1 overall pick in his draft class, and being taken by his hometown team.

play

0:15

LaMelo Ball beats Markieff Morris and goes up to put in a sweet reverse layup in transition for the Hornets.

Ball entered the league as something of a mystery, having skipped his final year of high school and college to play overseas for two seasons before the Hornets drafted him No. 3 overall last fall.

But the youngest of the three Ball brothers has arguably lived just as much of his life in the limelight as James had entering the league. And had endured more doubters than James ever did, as he stumbled as a teenager in the Lithuanian league and goofed around in the family’s Facebook Live reality show.

Those struggles and experiences, Ball’s father, LaVar Ball, once predicted, were what gave LaMelo the potential to be the best of his three sons.

“People ask me, ‘Who’s the best?'” LaVar said in an interview with ESPN the Magazine in 2017. “‘I go, Lonzo’s the best right now. He’s the oldest. But Melo is gonna be the best, because he has the most experience … he’s getting the most experience and the most s—.'”

The elder Ball has been noticeably quiet as his youngest son has exploded onto the NBA scene this year. Some of that is a function of geography — LaVar still lives at his home in Chino Hills, an hour east of Los Angeles, while Lonzo is in New Orleans and LaMelo is in Charlotte. Another part is a conscientious decision to step back from the media spotlight, where he often overshadowed Lonzo when he was starting out with the Lakers.

But LaVar has not been completely silenced. He did a radio interview with ESPN Los Angeles before Thursday’s game in which he doubled down on LaMelo’s comment that the game against James wasn’t extra special.

“He don’t look at it as, ‘Oh, I’m playing this guy!'” LaVar Ball said on the “Mason & Ireland” show. “No, it’s competition. … How’s he gonna be in awe of another man and your daddy is LaVar Ball?”

The boast elicited laughs from the hosts. Indeed, several of his statements went viral, as they usually do. But as has been the case all season, LaMelo’s talent has spoken for itself.

“He’s damn good to be his age,” James said of Ball after their matchup. “His speed, his quickness, his ability to make shots and baskets in the paint … and he’s going to only get better. Every game is a learning experience for him. He’s going to get better as the season goes on and his career goes on.

“Him and ‘Zo are two very unique players in our league and they showcase that every night.”

James got the better of Ball and the Hornets on this night, finishing with a game-high 37 points on 14-of-22 shooting to propel the Lakers to their fourth straight win and drawing a new round of MVP proclamations from his coach and teammates.

But Ball looked every bit the front-runner for Rookie of the Year, scoring 20 of his 26 points in the second half as Charlotte rallied back from a 15-point halftime deficit to cut the lead to 86-85 on Ball’s 3-pointer with 10 minutes, 13 seconds to go in the fourth quarter.

“You could feel his excitement early,” Hornets coach James Borrego said. “He wanted to play well and prove that he belongs in this league. … I think he was a little anxious at first, but he settled down and slowed down. … I thought he was fantastic down the stretch. I liked his fight and his competitive spirit.”

His mistakes were aggressive mistakes, not because of any extra pressure matching up with the four-time MVP. The clear-path foul, which gave James two free throws and the Lakers the ball on the ensuing possession, showed Ball’s competitiveness to get back on defense after a turnover.

“It was just a little dumb mistake I have to learn from,” Ball said of the turnover (his sixth of the night), which sent him to the bench for the next 5:27.

play

2:21

Stephen A. Smith breaks down how LeBron James should feel about LaMelo Ball “not really” being excited to face him for the first time.

The Hornets stayed even with the Lakers during that stretch. But they didn’t have enough time left to mount any kind of a rally when Ball finally returned with 1:43 to go and the Lakers were up 112-101. Ball scored four points in the remaining time, but James and the Lakers closed it out rather easily. After the game, Ball spoke to the media briefly, then returned to the team hotel.

Because of the NBA’s health and safety protocols, Ball’s first NBA game in his hometown was a lonely one. The Hornets will stay over in Los Angeles to play the Clippers on Saturday. In a normal year he would have been able to see hundreds of family members and friends, just as his older brother did during his time with the Lakers. But these are not normal times.

“Life weird right now,” Ball said with a shrug, when asked about the non-homecoming homecoming. “Everything feels really normal, to be honest. So I don’t really know what’s going on.”



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Sports

Florida golfer, 74, apparently drowns after searching for missing ball

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A Florida golfer was found dead Sunday, and is believed to have drowned after falling into a golf club pond while searching for his lost ball, authorities said.

Hermilo Jazmines, 74, of Lutz, was found by a law enforcement dive team submerged in the water near his putter, according to the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

“Investigators say the evidence suggests Jazmines may have fallen into the water and drowned,” authorities said. “Deputies spoke with friends of Jazmines who say he likes to search the course for lost golf balls.”

TIGER WOODS REACTS TO GOLFERS WEARING RED ON SUNDAY: ‘YOU ARE TRULY HELPING ME GET THROUGH THIS TOUGH TIME’

Jazmines was playing golf with a friend at the East Lake Woodlands Country Club in Oldsmar Sunday morning when investigators said he teed off at the third hole and was last seen “looking for his ball near the green.”

Deputies were called after Jazmines was reported missing. They searched a nearby wooded area and assisted the Oldsmar Fire Department in searching the edge of the pond.

TIGER WOODS HAD SUCCESSFUL FOLLOW-UP PROCEDURES FRIDAY MORNING AS HE RECOVERS FROM WRECK

“Jazmines’ golf cart was parked on the cart path and his putter was found lying on the ground near the water,” the sheriff’s office said. 

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Authorities said the medical examiner’s office will conduct an autopsy to determine the cause and manner of death, “however, it does not appear to be suspicious at this time.”

Oldsmar is located about 15 miles northwest of Tampa. 

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Entertainment

‘Sister Wives’ star Meri Brown says marriage with Kody is ‘dead’: ‘Best to leave the ball in his court’

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Meri and Kody Brown’s relationship seems to be over. 

Over the last two seasons of “Sister Wives,” the deterioration of Meri and Kody Brown’s marriage has been a focal point of the series. Now, Meri is revealing that the relationship is “dead.”

“My relationship with Meri is — at best — just distant and amicable,” Kody, 52, first says in a sneak peek of Sunday’s episode, which was obtained by Us Weekly. 

The sneak peek then flashes back to a therapy session from two months prior, in which Meri, 50, drops the bombshell — stating, “The relationship between he and I, it’s gone. It’s dead. It’s over.”

‘SISTER WIVES’ STAR MERI BROWN REFLECTS ON 30-YEAR MARRIAGE TO HUSBAND KODY: WE’RE ‘FIGURING OUT WHERE WE ARE’

From left: Robyn Brown, Meri Brown, Kody Brown, Christine Brown and Janelle Brown from ‘Sister Wives.’ Meri Brown has been married to Kody Brown since 1990.
(Getty)

“I’m really careful about pushing Kody, because I don’t want him to feel like I’m being demanding or pushy or anything like that,” she laments further. “I feel like I’ve made it known to him enough where I want the relationship to go, as far as just moving forward. It’s best to leave the ball in his court.”

Kody then explains his true feelings regarding his first wife of over 30 years, citing that his “three other relationships” have taken precedence over Meri.

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Meri is the first of husband Kody’s four wives as the couple leads a plural relationship with Kody’s three other wives: Janelle, Christine and Robyn.
(Photo by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images)

“For all my marriage with Meri, I felt like she unloads her emotions into a burden that I’m supposed to carry,” Kody stated. “I’m not carrying this burden, because there’s no reason that I should. I haven’t put effort into that relationship specifically because I have three other relationships that are rewarding and wholesome with children that need me [and] need to see me.”

The fractures in Meri and Kody’s relationship date back to 2015, when it was revealed that Meri was “catfished” online by a woman whom she thought was a man for relationship purposes.

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“During an emotional and vulnerable time earlier this year, I began speaking with someone online who turned out to be not who they said they were,” Meri told People in 2015. “I never met this person and I regret being drawn into this situation, but I hope because of it I can help others who find themselves in similar circumstances.”

Meri is the first of husband Kody’s four wives as the couple leads a plural relationship with Kody’s three other wives: Janelle, Christine and Robyn.

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Sports

Charlotte Hornets rookie LaMelo Ball goes off for big night against Houston Rockets

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Have a Monday night LaMelo Ball.

The Charlotte Hornets’ rookie point guard tied team records, had some amazing assists and buried a career-high seven 3-pointers in the Hornets’ 119-94 win over the Houston Rockets. The effort also helped slow down the Rockets, who had won four of their past five road games by double-digits.

“Stepped on the court. No warm-up, no nothing,” Ball said in a postgame interview on NBA TV. “Was still cool.”

According to Elias Sports Bureau research, Ball is the third player, age 19 or younger, to record multiple games of 20 points, 10 rebounds and 5 assists, joining LeBron James and Luka Doncic. Pretty good company.

Ball finished with 24 points, 10 assists and 7 rebounds and did it in a variety of fun ways.

Shooting 3s

Ball tied his career high with four 3s in the first half Monday night. He finished with seven 3-pointers, which tied the Hornets’ rookie record. Ball has made 45 3s in 25 games. For comparison, at the same point in his career, Lonzo, LaMelo’s older brother, had 25 made 3s.

Ball is averaging 22.6 PPG in his past five games (all starts) compared to 12.2 PPG in his first 20 games, in which he came off the bench in every game, per ESPN Stats & Information research.

The assists and passing

Ball had 10 assists Monday, one short of his career high of 11, done twice this season.

With the performance, Ball is the youngest player in NBA history to record a game with 20 points, 10 assists and at least five 3-pointers.

ESPN Stats & Information contributed to this report.



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Science

Remastered images reveal how far Alan Shepard hit a golf ball on the Moon

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Enlarge / This image consists of six photographs taken from the Apollo 14 Lunar Module, enhanced and stitched into a single panorama to show the landing scene, along with the location from where Alan Shepard hit two golf balls. Both astronaut’s PLSS’ (life-support backpacks) can also be seen at left.

Fifty years ago this week, NASA astronaut Alan B. Shepard Jr. made space history when he took a few golf swings on the Moon during the Apollo 14 mission, successfully hitting two golf balls across the lunar surface. Space enthusiasts have debated for decades just how far that second ball traveled. It seems we now have an answer, thanks to the efforts of imaging specialist Andy Saunders, who digitally enhanced archival images from that mission and used them to estimate the final resting spots of the golf balls.

Saunders, who has been working with the United States Golf Association (USGA) to commemorate Shepard’s historical feat, announced his findings in a Twitter thread. Saunders concluded that the first golf ball Shepard hit traveled roughly 24 yards, while the second golf ball traveled 40 yards.

Shepard’s fondness for cheeky irreverence had popped up occasionally during his successful pre-NASA naval career, most notably when he was a test pilot at the Naval Air Station Patuxent River in Maryland. He was nearly court-martialed for looping the Chesapeake Bay Bridge during a test flight, but fortunately, his superiors intervened. When President Dwight D. Eisenhower established NASA in 1959, Shepard was selected as one of the seven Mercury astronauts. (The others were Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper, John Glenn, Gus Grissom, Wally Schirra, and Deke Slayton.)

Shepard beat out some fierce competition be chosen for the first American crewed mission into space. Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin famously became the first man in space on April 25, 1961, thanks to repeated postponements of NASA’s Mercury mission, but Shepard wasn’t far behind. He made his own flight into space one month later, on May 5. Alas, he was a grounded after being diagnosed with Ménière’s disease, resulting in an unusually high volume of fluid in the inner ear.

Surgery four years later corrected the problem, and Shepard was cleared for flight. He narrowly missed being assigned to the famous Apollo 13 mission—NASA’s “most successful failure” and the subject of the 1995 Oscar-winning film, Apollo 13 (one of my all-time faves). Instead, Shepard commanded the Apollo 14 mission, which launched on January 31, 1971, and landed on the Moon on February 5.

To the Moon!

The idea for Shepard’s golfing stunt came out of a 1970 visit by comedian Bob Hope to NASA headquarters in Houston. An avid golfer, Hope cracked a joke about hitting a golf ball on the Moon, and Shepard thought it would be an excellent means of conveying to people watching back on Earth the difference in the strength of gravity. So he paid a pro named Jack Harden at the River Oaks Country Club in Houston to adapt a Wilson Staff 6-iron head so that it could be attached to a collapsible aluminum and Teflon sample collector. Once NASA’s Technical Services division added some finishing touches, Shepard practiced his golf swing at a course in Houston while wearing his 200-plus-pound spacesuit to prepare.

Most popular accounts describe Shepard as “smuggling” two balls and a golf club onto the spacecraft, but according to a later interview with Shepard, that wasn’t the case. The astronaut ran the idea past then-NASA director Bob Gilruth, who was initially opposed but relented once Shepard laid out the precise details. Shepard also assured Gilruth that the stunt would only be done once all the official exploration tasks had been completed and then only if the mission had gone off without a hitch.

On February 6, Shepard brought out the club and two balls. His spacesuit was too bulky to use both hands, so he swung the makeshift club with just his right hand. After two swings that were “more dirt than ball,” he made contact with the ball on his third swing, “shanking” it into a nearby crater. (“Looked like a slice to me, Al,” Apollo 13 pilot Fred Haise joked while watching from Mission Control.)

But Shepard nailed his fourth attempt. He sent the ball soaring out of camera range and declared that it traveled for “miles and miles and miles.” And as he had anticipated, the impressive 30-second time of flight perfectly showcased the difference in gravity between the Earth and the Moon. Not to be left out, crewmate Edgar Mitchell used a pole from a solar wind experiment as a javelin, which landed near the first golf ball. Once back on Earth, Shepard donated his makeshift club to the USGA museum and had a reproduction made that is now on display at the Smithsonian.

The location of the first ball Shepard hit has been known for quite some time—it’s sitting in a crater next to Mitchell’s javelin, about 24 yards from where Shepard stood when he took his swing. Saunders’ remastering of archival photos enabled him to locate the second ball that traveled farther, as well as one of the divots in the lunar soil.

“You can access Apollo imagery to very high quality online,” Apollo historian and video editor W. David Woods told Ars. “These shots were taken at 55 millimeters, the negatives and transparencies, for 55 millimeters a side. The scans they’ve done on them that are available online are 11,000 pixels across. So they’re enormous, huge pictures that you can really dive into, if you’ve got expertise in image processing.”

Image tricks

Saunders has that expertise. He relied on recent high-resolution scans of the original flight film, and he also used a technique known as substacking, among others.

“Some stuff was shot using 16 millimeter movie film,” said Woods. “Each individual image is quite small and grainy. But if you stack them one on top of the other, you cancel out the grain, you cancel out the noise, and you’re left with the imagery that’s inherent in all those frames. It’s a trick that astronomers use, where they take lots and lots of pictures of one area of the night sky. They cancel out the noise by stacking the images in just the same way.”

The Apollo 14 crew had taken a sequence of photographs from the window of the lunar module to capture the scene for posterity, which Saunders stitched together into a single panorama. According to Saunders, given the known location of the TV camera, it was possible to identify Shepard’s bootprints, showing his stance for his first two (failed) attempts. Using a known scale from images taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, he was then able to measure the point between the divot and the second golf ball to come up with his estimate for 40 yards.

Saunders, whose forthcoming book is entitled Apollo Remastered, estimates that a professional US Open golfer like Bryson DeChambeau could, in theory, hit a ball as far as 3.41 miles on the Moon, with a hang time of 1 minute 22 seconds—much farther (and longer) than Shepard’s feat. As he told the BBC:

Unfortunately, even the impressive second shot could hardly be described as “miles and miles and miles,” but of course this has only ever been regarded as a light-hearted exaggeration. The Moon is effectively one giant, unraked, rock-strewn bunker. The pressurized suits severely restricted movement, and due to their helmet’s visors they struggled to even see their feet. I would challenge any club golfer to go to their local course and try to hit a six-iron, one-handed, with a one-quarter swing out of an unraked bunker. Then imagine being fully suited, helmeted, and wearing thick gloves. Remember also that there was little gravity to pull the clubhead down toward the ball. The fact that Shepard even made contact and got the ball airborne is extremely impressive.

And of course, the astronaut’s legacy as the first human to play golf on the Moon remains secure.



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