Colorful, speckled rocks found on the surface of Mars have offered among the most encouraging evidence yet of ancient life on our neighboring planet, scientists at NASA announced Wednesday.The Perseverance Mars rover collected the “Sapphire Canyon” rock samples in July 2024 from what’s thought to be an ancient lakebed, and its poppyseed and leopard-esque spots pointed to potential chemical reactions that piqued the interest of researchers.If the features resulted from microbial activity that created minerals in the way they do on Earth — well, that might point to life on Mars.It’s far too soon for scientists to say that definitively, but the findings, which were detailed in research published in the journal Nature, are alluring.”We put it out to our scientific friends to pressure test it, to analyze it, and go, did we get this right? Do we think this is signs of ancient life on Mars?” NASA’s Acting Administrator Sean Duffy said at a news conference.”They said, ‘Listen, we can’t find another explanation.’ So this very well could be the clearest sign of life that we’ve ever found on Mars.””It’s kind of the equivalent of seeing like leftover fossils, leftovers from a meal, and maybe that meal has been excreted by a microbe,” Nicky Fox, administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, told journalists.When those kinds of mineral and textured features form in sediment on Earth, it’s frequently the product of reactions from mud and organic matter, explained the study’s lead author Joel Hurowitz — a potential “biosignature,” or sign of life.Specifically, Perserverance’s instruments identified the minerals vivianite and greigite. On Earth, vivianite is often found in sediments, peat bogs, and around decaying organic matter. Some forms of microbial life on Earth can produce greigite.”But there are non-biological ways to make these features that we cannot completely rule out on the basis of the data that we collected,” Hurowitz said.Still, the findings are “exciting,” he told journalists, explaining that researchers would need to analyze the sample in person to better understand if microbial activity had created the “fantastic textures” and colors including blue and green.- ‘Are we alone in universe?’ -That’s no small feat, particularly in light of President Donald Trump administration’s plans to cancel the Mars Sample Return program — a robotic mission planned for the 2030s to bring Perseverance’s samples back to Earth.Asked by journalists if that was still the plan, Duffy was non-committal, hinting the samples might be brought back by a future crewed mission instead.”We care about resources, we care about the timeframe, we believe there’s a better way to do this, a faster way to get these samples back. And so that is the analysis that we’ve gone through. Can we do it faster? Can we do it cheaper? And we think we can,” he said.There are several rovers ambling across Mars — Perseverance has been there since 2021 — seeking signs of life that could have existed millions to billions of years ago, when the planet was thought to have been more habitable.Evidence that ancient rivers and lakes carved into the planet’s surface would indicate that water once flowed there.And the latest discovery, said Fox, brought researchers “one step closer” to answering the burning question: “Are we truly alone in the universe?”

Billionaire Elon Musk is at risk of losing his title of world’s wealthiest person to Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, whose software giant stands poised for massive AI riches.Ellison, 81, amassed more than $100 billion in additional wealth Wednesday as Oracle shares skyrocketed after the nearly 50-year old company forecast massive revenue growth amid the artificial intelligence investment boom.That rise lifted Ellison’s overall wealth to about $406 billion compared with Musk’s roughly $440 billion, according to a Forbes real-time billionaire’s index.A Bloomberg wealth index placed Ellison’s bounty slightly ahead of Musk’s, designating the Oracle chief number one at the moment. The difference in the tallies relates to how some of their huge holdings are estimated.Musk’s most easily estimated holding is Tesla, whose shares have fallen in 2025 amid languishing sales attributed partly to Musk’s embrace of far-right political figures.Tesla earlier this month unveiled a compensation proposal for Musk that could top $1 trillion through 2035 if the company hits ambitious targets. Shareholders will vote on the plan in November.Ellison, a longtime supporter of President Donald Trump, holds more than 1.1 billion shares of Oracle, accounting for more than 40 percent of equity, according to S&P Capital IQ.Oracle CEO Safra Catz called the just-finished quarter “astonishing” as the company signed “four multi-billion-dollar contracts with three different customers.”Oracle projected that its cloud business revenues would grow 77 percent in the current fiscal year to $18 billion. In subsequent years, revenues are expected to rise to $32 billion, $73 billion, $114 billion, and $144 billion.Near 1630 GMT, Oracle shares were up about 40 percent at $338.00, translating into a market value of around $950 billion. 

Francisco Arriaga offers a weekly dinner in the basement of his Chicago church — but he doesn’t put out many tables these days as worshippers stay away, fearful of anti-migrant sweeps.”Everyone is scared, not just the undocumented,” said Arriaga, music director of St Paul’s Catholic Church in the city’s Pilsen neighborhood, a hub for Latinos.”I’d normally have double the amount of tables set up, but only three people showed up at our last meeting,” he told AFP.Foot traffic on Cermak Road, the neighborhood’s main artery and home to businesses and restaurants, has slumped in recent weeks as President Donald Trump vows raids and threatens to send in National Guard troops.”If people think it will stop with the immigrant community, it will allow the Trump regime to normalize this, and anybody can be next,” said Byron Sigcho-Lopez, a local alderman.Any major operation in Chicago will echo Trump’s action in Los Angeles and Washington as the president pushes ahead with his election-winning vow to deport illegal migrants.Sigcho-Lopez said arrests in Chicago by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have been scattered so far, but people are waiting and wondering how to react.”Trump is instigating, that’s his play. We tell people that it’s important to stay calm and record it on their phones, to document what is happening,” said Sigcho-Lopez.Chicago’s population of 2.7 million includes more than 800,000 who identified as Hispanic or Latino in the 2020 census and it is estimated that 150,000 people in the city are undocumented, making up about eight percent of households.- Fears of violence -Brothers Eric Ruiz, 45, and Jessie Ruiz, 50, are Pilsen residents since childhood, and are US citizens like their father — but they still fear arbitrary arrest.”It’s constantly in the back of my head. I worry for the sake of my father, who is in his 70s,” Eric said.Jessie Ruiz added “we grew up here and this is not something we ever had to deal with,” and he predicted pushback from Chicago residents.”The city won’t take kindly to having ICE conduct raids here and that will be (Trump’s) excuse to send in the National Guard.”Mike Oboza, a nightclub singer, recently witnessed an ICE arrest in Pilsen and said he had been left badly shaken.”I didn’t know what to do. I was just frozen,” Oboza said. “I don’t know when or if I’ll be able to sing again.”Robert Pape, a professor of political science at the University of Chicago who has studied political violence for decades, fears the city could be a “powder keg.””I’ve been stressing the need for the community to publicly, vocally repeat the non-violence message,” he told AFP, added that troops might be welcomed by some.”There is often the honeymoon period,” Pape said citing federal forces deployed in Portland, Oregon, in the summer of 2020, but explaining that occupations usually end up exacerbating widespread civil unrest and political violence.”People don’t like crime, but they don’t like military occupations even more, and they certainly won’t like a police state if it goes on for months and months.”- Staying home -For now, residents, especially those in the Latino community, are doing their best to go about their lives and to speak up for others.That’s what Vanessa Escobar, an 18-year-old student at Roosevelt University, said she was doing Monday night at a downtown Chicago protest against ICE, six miles from Pilsen.”I’m Mexican-American and it’s important for my community to have our voices heard. I’m here for the others who are too afraid to come out. What Trump has been doing is terrifying,” Escobar said.While many others are staying home and curtailing their daily movements, a morale booster came with the announcement that El Grito, a Mexican Independence Day celebration that was postponed because of increased ICE activity, is back on.It is now to take place at St Paul Catholic Church next week. Arriaga said while he thinks some Latinos will still skip the festival, this year the church may attract a new audience.”There may be more non-Latinos — allies, and that’s a good thing.”