Jerome Powell has served as the Federal Reserve Chair since 2018. His term is set to end in May 2026. Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images 2025-04-21T18:24:05Z Save Saved Read in app This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now. Have an account? Fed Chair Jerome Powell has spoken out against Trump's tariff plans. Trump has repeatedly criticized Powell and suggested firing him before his term is up. Powell says Trump cannot legally fire him before his term ends in May 2026. President Donald Trump hasn't been shy voicing his frustrations with Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.While Trump nominated Powell for the position in 2017, the president has recently accused the Fed leader of "playing politics," being "always TOO LATE AND WRONG," and playing into Europe's hands by not lowering interest rates. Trump has publicly suggested that he could fire Powell, though Powell has said that isn't legal.Here's everything to know about Powell's background, financial stances, and the legal questions around whether Trump can fire him.Jerome Powell's education and career historyPowell, 72, has been a member of the Fed's board of governors since 2012, when President Barack Obama nominated him to fill an unexpired term. He was reappointed in 2014 to complete a 14-year term ending in 2028.He was nominated to his first four-year term as the Fed's chair in 2018 by Trump, and to his second term by Biden in 2022. Trump strayed from the norm when he nominated Powell for the position, overlooking Janet Yellen, the current chairwoman at the time, for a second term.Powell said in 2023 that his salary as Fed chair is around $190,000 a year.Before joining the Fed, Powell was a visiting scholar at the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington, DC, a think-tank that promotes collaborative work between Democrats and Republicans.He also spent eight years at The Carlyle Group, a private-equity firm with more than $200 billion in assets under managements.The Washington, DC, native previously worked as Assistant Secretary and Under Secretary of the Treasury Department under President George H.W. Bush and as a lawyer in New York City.Powell, who is married with three children, has an BA in politics from Princeton University and a law degree from Georgetown University.Powell vs. TrumpDuring both of Trump's terms in office, Powell has had to grapple with concerns of a slowing global economy and political pressure from the president to cut interest rates. Trump's latest tariff plans have added to the economic uncertainty and public fears of an impending recession.In a recent speech at the Economic Club of Chicago, Powell said that tariffs under the Trump administration could create a "challenging scenario" for the economy and are likely to at least temporarily raise inflation.He also warned that if tariffs drive up consumer prices and slow down overall economic growth, it could put the Fed's dual mandate — low unemployment and price stability — at risk."Without price stability, we cannot achieve the long periods of strong labor market conditions that benefit all Americans," Powell said in his speech.Powell's speech rattled investor confidence and deepened an ongoing stock sell-off.Can Trump fire Powell?A day after Powell's speech, Trump attacked the Fed chair on Truth Social and suggested to reporters in the Oval Office that he has the authority to remove Powell before his term is up — a position Trump also held during his first term in office. "If I want him out, he'll be out of there real fast, believe me," Trump said.White House economic advisor Kevin Hassett told reporters outside the White House the following day that the president and his team "will continue to study" if there's a way to fire Powell.According to a report from The Wall Street Journal, the president has for months been privately talking about firing Powell, and has discussed replacing him with Kevin Warsh.Powell, however, said in November after Trump was elected that firing the Fed Chair is against the law, and that he wouldn't resign if Trump asked him.He also said in his speech at the Economic Club that the Fed's "independence is a matter of law" and that "Congress has in our statute that we're not removable except for cause." And although Congress can change that law, Powell said he doesn't think it's likely.The law stipulates that a president can only fire a Fed official if there's cause for removal, and that doesn't include policy disagreements.Though the central bank is supposed to operate independently of the White House, Trump has moved to expand his presidential power over independent agencies. Recommended video

On Monday, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case that could lead health insurance plans to offer narrower coverage. The case, known as Kennedy v. Braidwood Management, challenges the authority of a group within the US Department of Health and Human Services tasked with requiring insurers to cover some forms of preventative care.This body, known as the US Preventive Services Task Force (PSTF), has exercised its authority to mandate coverage of a wide range of treatments — from cancer screenings, to drugs that prevent transmission of the HIV virus, to eye ointments that prevent infections that cause blindness in infants. Notably, the PSTF was given this power by the Affordable Care Act, the landmark legislation signed by President Barack Obama, which Republican litigants frequently ask the courts to undermine.The plaintiffs, represented by former Donald Trump lawyer Jonathan Mitchell, want the justices to strip the PSTF of this authority — thus permitting health plans to deny coverage for treatments they are currently required to pay for.Based on Monday’s argument, it does not appear likely that Mitchell has the votes for that outcome. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito came out swinging against the PSTF, and Justice Neil Gorsuch appeared likely to join them in attempting to sabotage Obamacare. But they were the only three justices who clearly telegraphed sympathy to Mitchell’s arguments.Notably, Republican Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett both seemed inclined to vote against Mitchell, although their questions did leave some uncertainty about how they would ultimately rule in this case. All three of the Court’s Democrats appeared all but certain to uphold the PSTF, so that means there may be at least five votes to preserve health insurers’ obligations under Obamacare.What is the legal issue in Braidwood Management?This case turns on a somewhat arcane issue involving the government’s hiring and firing practices. The Constitution says that certain officials — under the Supreme Court’s precedents, officials who wield significant authority — are “officers of the United States.” Officers that answer only to the president and who make final decisions on behalf of the government are considered “principal officers,” and must be nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate. Meanwhile, lesser-ranking officials known as “inferior officers” may be appointed by an agency leader such as a Cabinet secretary.Members of the PSTF were appointed by the Secretary of Health and Human Services, so they do not qualify as principal officers. So the question in this case is whether they are validly classified as inferior officers. To qualify as such an official, their work must be supervised by a principal officer confirmed by the Senate. As the Supreme Court said in Edmond v. United States (1997), “‘inferior officers’ are officers whose work is directed and supervised at some level by others who were appointed by Presidential nomination with the advice and consent of the Senate.”The government’s argument that PSTF members count as inferior officers is pretty straightforward. Every judge who has looked at this case so far has concluded that the health secretary may remove PSTF members at will. A statute permits the secretary to delay implementation of the PSTF’s recommendations indefinitely. And the PSTF is part of the Public Health Service, which by statute is controlled by the assistant secretary for health (who is also a Senate-confirmed official), and by the secretary himself.Mitchell, meanwhile, primarily relies on a provision of federal law which states that PSTF members “shall be independent and, to the extent practicable, not subject to political pressure.” Task force members, he claims, cannot simultaneously be “independent” and also subject to secretarial supervision.But most of the justices appeared skeptical of Mitchell’s reading of the word “independent.” Justice Sonia Sotomayor pointed out that she sometimes asks her law clerks for their “independent judgment” regarding a legal question she needs to decide, but that does not mean that she has to take the law clerk’s recommendation, or that she can’t fire the clerk.Significantly, Barrett — who repeatedly described Mitchell’s interpretation of the word “independent” as “maximalist” — seemed persuaded by Sotomayor’s argument. As Barrett said at one point during the argument, she sometimes asks her law clerks to provide recommendations that are “independent” of outside influence, but not “independent” of Barrett’s own approach to how cases should be decided.Even more significantly, Barrett pointed to the doctrine of “constitutional avoidance,” which says that if there are multiple ways of construing a statute, courts should avoid reading it in ways that raise constitutional problems. Thus, if the word “independent” can be read in more than one way, the Court should pick an interpretation that doesn’t render the PSTF unconstitutional.Kavanaugh, meanwhile, asked some questions that suggest he might be sympathetic to Mitchell’s approach; early in the argument, for example, he told Justice Department lawyer Hashim Mooppan that he thought the government’s interpretation of the word “independent” was “odd.” But he seemed to shift gears once Mitchell took the podium.Among other things, Kavanaugh noted that his Court is normally reluctant to read the law to create federal bodies that are independent of the government’s normal organizational chart, where agency leaders answer to the president and nearly everyone else answers to an agency leader. Indeed, the Supreme Court is currently considering a case that could eliminate Congress’s ability to create such independent agencies. So Kavanaugh appeared to believe that this statute should not be construed to make the PSTF independent from the secretary if it is possible to read it in another way.Again, Kavanaugh and Barrett did hedge enough in their questions that it is not entirely clear how they will vote in this case. And Chief Justice John Roberts, a Republican who also sometimes breaks with the Court’s right flank, was silent for most of the argument. So it is not at all clear where Roberts will come down in Kennedy v. Braidwood Management.Still, based on Monday’s argument, it appears possible, perhaps even likely, that the PSTF will survive.The Court may send this back down to the lower courtGorsuch, at one point, floated an alternative way of resolving this case. While every judge who has heard the case so far agreed that the secretary has the power to appoint and remove task force members, there’s no statute which directly states that he can do so. Instead, that power is likely implicit in other provisions of law, such as the provision giving the secretary control over the Public Health Service.Gorsuch suggested that the Court may send the case back down to the lower court to decide whether the secretary actually has the power to appoint and remove task force members. And Barrett, at one point, also signaled that she is open to sending the case back down in a procedure known as a “remand.”If that happens, that would be bad news for the PSTF in the short term, because the case was previously heard by the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, the most right-wing court in the federal appellate system, and one, based on its past behavior, that is likely to be hostile to any statute associated with a Democratic president.Still, even if the case is sent back down to the Fifth Circuit, and even if the Fifth Circuit does read federal law to undercut the PSTF, the Supreme Court can still review that decision once it is handed down. So a remand does not necessarily mean that health insurers will gain the power to deny coverage for cancer screenings or anti-HIV medication.Again, given the course of Barrett and Kavanaugh’s questioning, it’s difficult to say with certainty how this case will end up. For the moment, however, one of two outcomes seem most likely: Either the Supreme Court holds off on deciding the PSTF’s fate for now, or it votes to permanently rescue this body from Mitchell’s attack.See More:

At last, the rumours will stop (Bethesda) Bethesda is teasing an Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion livestream where it will no doubt unveil the first gameplay footage of the long-rumoured remaster. After months of rumours, of Microsoft releasing a remaster of The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion, concrete evidence of its existence, including several screenshots, leaked last week via the website for Singaporean developer Virtuos. That reinforced suggestions that the remaster could launch as early as this month, with some suggesting that Microsoft could just shadow drop it with little fanfare – which would be surprising considering the original game’s popularity and legacy. Whatever the case, Microsoft and Bethesda have now formally acknowledged the remaster’s existence and intend to make a proper announcement this week. When is The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered being announced? An Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion related livestream is currently slated to go live on Bethesda’s YouTube channel on Tuesday, April 22 at 4pm BST. Although the livestream’s title only reads ‘All will be revealed,’ the placeholder image depicts the roman numeral for four and what looks like a close-up of a helmeted solider. The point is, it’s blatantly for Elder Scrolls 4, but exactly what the livestream will entail is being kept under wraps. At the very least, you should expect a trailer, a release date, confirmation of Virtuos’ involvement, and pre-order details, since the leaked screenshots included images of a deluxe edition of the game. The leaked screenshots already showed that the game’s graphics have seen a significant overhaul, to the point where some suggest it looks more like a remake than a remaster. A report from earlier this year also claimed that some gameplay elements have been adjusted. For example, blocking attacks during combat was described to be more akin to Soulslike games. More Trending There haven’t been any other significant leaks since the screenshots but that hasn’t stopped people from scouring for any info they can find. For instance, dataminer XOXLEAK (who typically focuses on Marvel Rivals leaks) has claimed the Elder Scrolls 4 remaster’s file size will be a whopping 120 GB, making it much bigger than The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim. Fans also think they’ve found evidence of Virtuos talking about its intentions with the Elder Scrolls 4 remaster in an 80.LV interview from last year, where they describe it as being more along the lines of a remake, since they mention needing to modernise elements for both new and returning fans. ‘We are working on a very big, unannounced project,’ said Virtuos design director Nicolas Roginski, ‘Our approach for the design work of this remake is simple but challenging. … To produce a quality remake, we aim at recreating the ‘feeling of the memory’, not the actual memory.’ The deluxe edition even comes with the original game’s infamous horse armour (Bethesda) Email gamecentral@metro.co.uk, leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter, and sign-up to our newsletter. To submit Inbox letters and Reader’s Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use our Submit Stuff page here. For more stories like this, check our Gaming page. GameCentral Sign up for exclusive analysis, latest releases, and bonus community content. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Your information will be used in line with our Privacy Policy

NASA’s oldest serving astronaut returned to Earth on Saturday following a 7-month mission on board the International Space Station (ISS). Don Pettit marked his 70th birthday with a special homecoming, although his post-touchdown appearance raised concerns that the astronaut wasn’t doing so well after landing in Kazakhstan. Pettit, along with Roscosmos cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner, departed the ISS on Saturday at 5:57 p.m. ET on board a Soyuz spacecraft before making a parachute-assisted landing at 9:20 p.m. ET, according to NASA. After touching down in the southeast of Dzhezkazgan, Kazakhstan, Pettit was carried off to a medical tent for routine post-landing medical checks. For those who tuned in to NASA’s live feed of the crew touchdown, there was some speculation that Pettit looked especially frail after his stint in space, but the space agency quickly dismissed claims of health concerns. “According to NASA officials at the landing site, @Astro_Pettit is doing well and in the range of what is expected for him following return to Earth,” NASA wrote on X. The space agency quoted the astronaut from a pre-departure interview he had done from the ISS on April 16, in which he spoke of his post-landing experience, “This is a physiological thing. It affects different people in different ways. Some people can go out and eat pizza and dance. When I land, it takes me about 24 hours to feel like I’m a human being again.” The astronaut also jokingly revealed that, once he gets to Earth, he will probably “empty the contents of my stomach out the way it wasn’t meant to go.” Pettit, Ovchinin, and Vagner launched to the space station on September 11, 2024, and spent the past 220 days carrying out research and conducting science experiments in the microgravity environment. When he wasn’t busy growing plants or exploring the behavior of fire in space, Pettit shared some incredible views from the space station that have captivated his followers online. This was Pettit’s fourth time in space, with the veteran astronaut logging a total of 590 days in orbit so far. Pettit launched on board the Space Shuttle Endeavour on November 23, 2002 for his first mission on board the ISS. That mission was originally slated to last for two and a half months, but Pettit ended up spending nearly six months on the space station after the Columbia Space Shuttle disaster that tragically killed all seven astronauts and grounded the Space Shuttle fleet. Pettit has had a long history in spaceflight, but he is still not the oldest person to travel to space. That record belongs to John Glenn, who launched on the Space Shuttle Discovery in 1998 at the age of 77. Astronaut Peggy Whitson became the oldest woman to orbit Earth in 2023 when she served as a commander of a private 10-day mission to the ISS, Axiom Mission-2, at 63 years old. Compared to Pettit’s long-duration flight, however, Glenn spent less than a fraction of the time in orbit, completing a nine-day mission as a payload specialist. The mission carried out research on aging and the effects of spaceflight, an area that is still being studied to this today. Although scientists are still trying to understand how space affects the human body, previous research has suggested that spaceflight can accelerate the symptoms of aging by inducing genomic instability. Pettit may not hold the record for the oldest person to go to space, but he is the oldest to complete a long-duration mission in the harsh environment. The astronaut’s continued dedication to spaceflight and his curiosity for the cosmos are truly admirable.

Warrandyte House / Figureground ArchitectureSave this picture!© Tasha Tylee Architects: Figureground Architecture Area Area of this architecture project Area:  350 m² Year Completion year of this architecture project Year:  2024 Photographs Photographs:Tasha Tylee Lead Architects: Matt Rawlins More SpecsLess Specs Save this picture! Text description provided by the architects. On traditionally Wurundjeri country, Warrandyte is a semi-rural area 25 km north-east of Melbourne, Australia. The landscape is characterised by partially cleared farmland, scattered remnants of eucalyptus bushland, and rolling hills and valleys. The site for the house is a ridgeline, where the land then falls away steeply to the north and east. There are spectacular views through gum trees down the escarpment and across to the distant hills beyond.Save this picture!Save this picture!The primary form of the house is a simple rectangular prism with a charcoal metal-clad skillion roof, referencing the ubiquitous farm machinery sheds typical of the area. This form is embedded into the ridge by way of an earthy, masonry base which forms a lower-level datum. Two smaller brick structures to the north act as ancillary pavilions to accompany the primary dwelling.Save this picture!Save this picture!Save this picture!A double-height, timber battened void provides a sense of entry and arrival that emerges from the bush setting. Timber batten detailing is also seen in the operable screens that protect the western windows from the heat of the summer afternoon sun. The 2-metre change in ground level from west to east is resolved through a gradual stepping down, from the off-form concrete entry bridge, through internal spaces, external decked terraces, and down to the lower pool and garden.Save this picture!Inside the home, this subtle stepping down occurs over three levels: the sleeping zone, central service zone, and the lower living zone. The skillion roof form over interior areas allows contrasted experiences of both height and compression. The higher roof form allows for a double-height kids' rumpus with hidden access to attic play space. The living areas are characterised by a dark-toned, cathedral ceiling over the dining and living spaces, creating generous internal volumes of space and also funnelling views down through the deep, revealed picture windows.Save this picture!Public and private spaces are distinctly separated by a service spine. Kitchen, pantry, study, bathroom, and storage areas have been carefully organised within a linear pod. Timber veneer lining and integrated sliding doors conceal the functional spaces within.Save this picture!The north-east façade is defined by deep-revealed, timber picture windows. The interior window reveals a change in depth to incorporate integrated joinery shelves and benches, providing a sense of warmth and craft whilst framing the spectacular views beyond. The dwelling incorporates sustainable design measures including solar panels, electric heating and cooling, double glazing, high levels of insulation, passive solar orientation, and operable external screens to control summer heat gain.Save this picture! Project gallerySee allShow less About this office Published on April 21, 2025Cite: "Warrandyte House / Figureground Architecture" 21 Apr 2025. ArchDaily. Accessed . <https://www.archdaily.com/1029225/warrandyte-house-figureground-architecture&gt ISSN 0719-8884Save世界上最受欢迎的建筑网站现已推出你的母语版本!想浏览ArchDaily中国吗?是否 You've started following your first account!Did you know?You'll now receive updates based on what you follow! Personalize your stream and start following your favorite authors, offices and users.Go to my stream

Scientists from NASA’s Goddard Center for Astrobiology observed the comet C/2014 Q2–also called Lovejoy–and made simultaneous measurements of the output of H2O and HDO, a variant form of water. This image of Lovejoy was taken on February 4, 2015–the same day the team made their observations and just a few days after the comet passed its perihelion, or closest point to the sun. CREDIT: NASA Courtesy of Damian Peach. Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Here’s a little spoiler for next month’s Cosmic Calendar: early May will see the return of the Eta Aquarid meteor shower. The shower will be visible for two weeks or so, peaking on the evening of May 5. In fairness, this doesn’t really constitute a spoiler for veteran stargazers, because the Eta Aquarids pretty much always peak in early May. As far as meteor showers go, this one is as reliable and predictable as they get. Others, however, are less predictable. A paper published April 13 in the journal Icarus sheds some light on why that is.  Of meteors and comets  While meteor showers are generally named for the constellation from which they appear to originate, their actual origin has nothing to do with distant stars. They actually come from trails of dust left by relatively small celestial objects–mostly comets, but occasionally asteroids, too. In the case of the Eta Aquarids, the comet in question is Halley’s Comet, which readers of a certain age may have been lucky enough to see when it passed close to Earth in 1986. At first glance, this may seem surprising. Most comets follow highly elliptical orbits that can take many years to complete, while meteor showers happen around the same time every year. So, how are the two connected? The answer lies with the process that produces a comet’s signature diaphanous tail. When a comet gets close enough to the sun, it begins to shed material. Frozen compounds on its surface begin to melt, and the solar wind blasts away tiny particles of dust and rock. The result is a trail of dust and debris along the trajectory of the comet’s orbit, like a line of chalk left in space. In the case of comets linked to meteor showers, the Earth passes close enough to this trail for its gravity to capture some of the lost material. Every year, innumerable tiny chunks of ice and rock are dragged out of the trail and pulled toward the Earth, burning up as they plummet into our atmosphere. We see the resultant shower in the same part of the sky every year because that’s where the interaction happens every year. The trouble with forecasting showers In theory, meteor showers should be perfectly predictable. The Earth’s orbit doesn’t really change from year to year, and the comet’s trail is already there, waiting for us. The interaction between the two should, happen at the same time every year, right?  If the only celestial objects involved in the process were the Earth, the sun, and the comet, this would be true. The comet would follow a perfectly predictable path, shedding material that would remain where it was left until the Earth’s annual arrival to claim its meteoric dues. In reality, things are a lot more complicated. The solar system isn’t just the Earth and the sun–it’s the Earth, the sun, the moon, the other planets and their moons, and any number of other objects. In turn, all of these bodies exert gravitational influences on one another. Within the midst of this whole mess, there’s the comet itself, wobbling along its elliptical orbit, leaving its forlorn trail of dust and ice in the void. To predict a meteor shower accurately, we need to calculate where the debris is, which means calculating the comet’s trajectory. To do this with perfect accuracy, we’d need to make a calculation that factored in the gravitational effects of a huge number of celestial objects.  The actual three-body problem Unfortunately, gravitational calculations involving more than two bodies are a problem. This means that we have to simplify such calculations, modeling them as far less complex systems than they actually are. Part of the reason that gravitational calculations are so difficult is that no gravitational interaction is one-way–any massive object exerts its own gravitational influence on every other massive object. For example, think of the Earth and the moon. We tend to assume that the latter orbits the former, but that’s not actually true. The Earth pulls at the moon, but the moon also pulls at the Earth, and the result is that both objects orbit a point somewhere between them. This point is known as the barycenter.  [ Related: Scientists finally solve the mystery of why comets glow green. ] The solar system also has a barycenter, a point around which everything–including the sun–orbits. In most cases, we assume that the solar system’s barycenter is the sun, for the simple reason that the sun is many orders of magnitude more massive than anything else in the solar system. This means that if we’re calculating an object’s solar orbit, it makes no more sense to factor in the reciprocal gravitational influence that object exerts on the sun than it does to factor in the gravitational influence a coin dropped from a building exerts on the Earth. The subtle motion of the sun However, the new study shows that making this assumption in the case of comets presents two subtle problems. The first is that the more distant an object is from the sun, the more its orbit tends to revolve around the solar system’s barycenter. If an object is close enough to the sun, it really does orbit the sun alone. More distant objects, however, orbit the barycenter.  Most objects generally remain the same distance from the sun. Comets, by contrast, follow highly eccentric orbits that take them way out into the furthest reaches of the solar system. Halley’s Comet, for instance, passes just 54.7 million miles from the sun at its closest approach. Its aphelion–the point at which it is furthest from the sun–is 3.3 billion miles away, somewhere out near Pluto. These eccentric orbits take comets across the transition point–and the Icarus paper shows that the transition causes a sort of jolt to the comet’s trajectory.  The second problem is that assuming the sun to be the solar system’s centre of gravity also means assuming the sun itself to be stationary. This means that the sun’s own motion can’t be factored into these calculations. This doesn’t really matter in the case of objects in regular orbits, because those orbits simply move with the sun. Again, the picture is different for comets: the sun’s motion provides a gravitational boost to comets as they hurtle past, and this again causes a measurable shift in their trajectory.  The new research shows that incorporating both these factors into a model of a comet’s orbit provides a more accurate result–and, therefore, a more accurate prediction of when a meteor shower will happen. These are still simplified models, but they provide an insight into when we will next see a cascade of shooting stars in the sky–and also into the intricate dance of gravity that governs our motion through the cosmos.

Nature, Published online: 16 April 2025; doi:10.1038/s41586-025-08860-zA new device based on 7-septuple-layer MnBi2Te4 covered with an AlOx capping layer enables the investigation of antiferromagnetic quantum anomalous Hall effect over wide parameter spaces.

Take a look at this ethereal scene crafted with ZBrush, Substance 3D Painter, and Redshift by 3D Character Artist Maria Panfilova.More renders: https://80.lv/articles/surreal-mythic-scene-created-with-zbrush-substance-3d/

RT Thomas MarcosIt’s here! The Procedural Clouds Shader is now available for free!🌥️Can’t wait to see how you’ll use it in your projects.Details and link below 👇#b3d