Schedule Summary:President Donald Trump will have executive time, meet with the PM of Iraq, hold a policy meeting, participate in a swearing-in ceremony, and pre-tape an interview on Tuesday.ALL TIMES

Secretary of State Marco Rubio is warning that the International Criminal Court (ICC) has morphed from a narrow tribunal for the worlds worst atrocities into an unaccountable body seeking to prosecute

Federal banking regulators have closed a long-standing loophole that allow illegal immigrants borrow money from U.S. financial institutions with little scrutiny of their legal status. The Office of the

Meta Platforms 3,200-acre rural Louisiana data center investment will top $50 billion, the company said in a blog post on July 13.The social media giants Hyperion data center project in Richland

George Boole is an unknown name for many people, especially those unfamiliar with the history of science and mathematics.But despite his relative obscurity, this ingenious mathematician holds a significant place in the history books. His humble beginnings did not hold him back from achieving great things, for Boole was capable of learning complex mathematics without a mentor.With his pioneering ideas, Boole advanced the fields of logic and algebra, laying the foundation for modern computer technology.George Booles Early Life in the City ofLincolnLincoln Cathedral from the North-West by Frederick Mackenzie, 1850. Source: Victoria and Albert MuseumThough Boole came to prominence in the Victorian era, his childhood took place in the final chapters of the Georgian era during the reigns of King George III and King George IV.George Boole was born in the English city of Lincoln on November 2, 1815, and was baptized a day later in Swithins Church. He was the first of four children and had a relatively poor upbringing as the son of a cobbler (shoemaker), John Boole.Alongside his work as a cobbler, John had a passion for mathematics and science. He passed on this passion to his oldest son, who soon established himself as an intellectual youngster. A minister who worked at Swithins Church also played a part in Georges mathematical journey by lending him a book on Calculus. The young Boole had a knack for languages, too, for he studied German, Greek, and Latin as a teenager.At just sixteen years old, George started working as a teaching assistant at a school in Doncaster, Lincolnshire. He also briefly took up a teaching post in Liverpool. He was the primary breadwinner for the family during this time, supporting his parents and his three younger siblings, Charles, William, and Mary.Contrary to what one might expect, the young mathematician never attended university, at least not as a student. British universities were very exclusive at the time. Instead, Boole decided to set up his own schools instead. One of the schools was located close to Lincoln Cathedral, while another was established on Free School Lane.Published Work and Wider RecognitionPhotograph of Augustus De Morgan by Maull & Polyblank, c. 1860s. Source: National Portrait GalleryIn 1833, a technical institute was founded in Lincoln, and Boole obtained access to the reading room. Here, he used the available references to study higher mathematics. He accomplished this without any assistance, learning complex branches of study all by himself. This ability to understand advanced topics independently remains one of the most remarkable aspects of the great mathematician.Booles first published work appeared in the Cambridge Mathematical Journal in February 1840, just a few years into the reign of Queen Victoria. The paper was called Researches in the Theory of Analytical Transformations, with a Special Application to the Reduction of the General Equation of the Second Order.This led to a close friendship with the Scottish mathematician Duncan Gregory, the editor of Cambridge Mathematical Journal. Gregory himself was an important mind in the mathematical community, having studied at Cambridge University and published many of his own papers on operational Calculus. Boole and Gregory remained friends until the latters untimely death in 1844.Portrait of George Boole by an unknown illustrator, c. 1865. Source: Wellcome Collection / Linda Hall LibraryThe same year, Boole published another paper entitled On a Method of Analysis. The paper helped pave the way for operation theory and led to the first gold prize for mathematics from the Royal Society. While this was all very impressive, Boole was only just getting started with his pioneering ideas.In 1847, he published his first book, The Mathematical Analysis of Logic. Frequently cited as the origins of modern symbolic logic, Booles book showed how it was a branch of mathematics and introduced the revolutionary idea that symbols could represent objects, not just quantities.The Mathematical Analysis of Logic also developed a method for expressing algebraic rules of syllogistic reasoning. Other mathematicians from history, including the great Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, had failed to do this.Augustus De Morgan is another prominent name in Booles life. De Morgan first corresponded with Boole in 1842. He was an impressive mathematician in his own right and helped Boole proofread and prepare his papers for publication.Professor of Mathematics inIrelandQueens College Cork by Robert Lowe Stopford, c. 1850. Source: University College CorkWith the publication of Mathematical Analysis of Logic, Booles reputation grew considerably in the mathematical community. This enhanced reputation helped him become the Professor of Mathematics at Queens College, Cork, in Ireland. He took up this position in 1849, the year the college was formed.Ireland, having come through the worst of the Great Famine, was in a better place than it had been for several years. While Cork was not a major intellectual center, Booles new position was much more suitable for his reputation than his previous job as a schoolmaster. Whats more, having recently lost his father and found suitable provisions for his mother, Boole was free from his role as the family provider and could finally focus on his own life, both professionally and personally.Booles annual salary of 250 was supplemented by a 2 tuition fee every term from each of the students he taught. He graded all of the homework assignments himself, for he had no assistant to help him.Alongside his work at the university, Boole found time to write another book: An Investigation of the Laws of Thought (1854). Considered the mathematicians seminal masterpiece, the book was a key milestone in the history of computer science. Within its pages, Boole reduced logic to an algebra of true and false variables. This influenced many of his mathematical contemporaries, including Charles Babbage, John Venn (the inventor of the Venn diagram), and Augustus De Morgan.A few years after the publication of An Investigation of the Laws of Thought, an economist and logician called William Jevons built a logic piano for doing calculations. Limited to just four propositions, it wasnt a particularly useful device, but it was the first mechanization of what we now call Boolean logic.A Young Wife and a TalentedFamilyPhotograph of George Boole by an unknown photographer, c. 1840s. Source: University College CorkIn 1855, Boole married Mary Everest, the daughter of a clergyman and the niece of Lieutenant-Colonel Sir George Everest, the British surveyor whose name was given to the great Himalayan mountain.She was also the niece of Booles colleague John Ryall, who was Vice President and Professor of Greek at Cork. It was this mutual connection that had led to the relationship in the first place.The couple had a happy marriage and produced five children, all of whom were daughters. Like their father, many of the girls were incredibly clever individuals with a knack for originality.The middle sibling, Alicia, possessed an amazing ability to visualize geometric objects in four dimensions and contributed her thoughts to A New Era of Thought (1888), a book written by the mathematician Charles Howard Hinton. In 1900, Alicia published a paper in which she described three-dimensional sections of four-dimensional regular polytopes.Lucy, meanwhile, was a chemist and a pharmacist who wrote a paper for the Royal Society with the help of fellow chemist Wyndham Dunstan. Lucy also earned a place in the history books by becoming the first female professor at the London School of Medicine for Women.Ethel, the youngest daughter, went down a more creative pathway. She grew up to be a prolific novelist, with her most famous work being The Gadfly (1897). Set in the 1840s, the story takes place during the Italian Risorgimento, also known as the Unification of Italy.Some of Booles grandchildren also did well. Geoffrey Ingram Taylor followed in his grandfathers footsteps by becoming a mathematician and a member of the Royal Society. Leonard Stott, meanwhile, was a medical pioneer who invented a portable X-ray machine and a pneumothorax apparatus.Tragically, Boole didnt witness any of these achievements due to his untimely death.George Booles Death andLegacyPhotograph of Alan Turing by Elliott & Fry, 1951. Source: National Portrait GalleryBoole died at the age of forty-nine on December 8, 1864, in Cork.Toward the end of the previous month, the great mathematician had walked three miles from his home to the university. The weather conditions were poor, causing Boole to develop bronchitis after lecturing in wet clothes. The disease developed into pneumonia, and Boole died soon afterward. He was buried at Saint Michaels Church in Cork.Boole is an underrated figure in the vast catalog of influential inventors and scientists. Most people are familiar, at least to a certain extent, with the work of Isaac Newton, Thomas Edison, or Albert Einstein, but few have even heard of Boole. His greatest achievement was combining the branches of logic and mathematics. This was crucial for the development of computers. Booles symbolic logic was precisely what engineers required to design circuits for the digital age.Indeed, theres a direct connection between Booles work in the 19th century and the development of modern computers in the twentieth. Pioneers like Alan Turing (the English mathematician who cracked the German Enigma Machine during the Second World War) would not have achieved what they did had it not been for Boole. While Boole is more well-known in Lincoln and Cork, very few are aware of his place in the history of science and mathematics.

No organization has done more to push the boundaries of human exploration than Americas National Aeronautics and Space Administration. However, not every mission attempted by NASA has succeeded. In an attempt to push the envelope of discovery, the agency launched several missions that ended in catastrophic failure. The history of NASAs failed missions gives us an important insight into the treacherous nature of space exploration and the intricacies of human ambition.Apollo 13: A Tragedy AvertedNASA Mission Control during the Apollo 13 mission, 1970. Source: NASA / Wikimedia CommonsOn April 11, 1970, Apollo 13 astronauts, Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert, and Fred Haise took off. This was the seventh Apollo mission and the third planned American Moon landing. However, what began as a relatively routine lunar flight became one of the most spectacular failures in the history of NASA and a prime example of the ingenuity and skill of Americas space agency when faced with the ultimate test.Tragedy struck the crew of Apollo 13 approximately 56 hours into the mission when a routine electrical test ignited an oxygen tank, causing it to explode. The explosion not only left the crew with very little oxygen but also damaged the command modules generation and crucial life-support systems. The scheduled moon landing was quickly scrapped, and the crew of Apollo 13 were faced with a new objective; to devise a way to repair the damaged systems using parts available on the spacecraft and survive the journey home.To conserve their dwindling power and oxygen reserves, the crew used the Lunar Module as a makeshift lifeboat during their return to Earth. NASA engineers eventually devised an ingenious solution to replace the damaged life support systems and use the remaining fuel to orbit the Moon and plot a return course to Earth. While the initial danger was averted, the crew was forced to ration oxygen, water, and heating for the remainder of the mission. After six days on board a rapidly deteriorating spacecraft, the crew of Apollo 13 successfully entered Earths atmosphere on April 17 and splashed down in the Pacific Ocean. Following a thorough investigation, it was discovered that Teflon had been used inside the oxygen tank, which caused it to explode. This issue was rectified, and the subsequent missions to the Moon were completed without fault.The Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster: A National TragedyThe Challenger Shuttle explosion, 1986. Source: NASA / Wikimedia CommonsOn January 18, 1986, the space shuttle Challenger was poised to undertake a historic mission that would revitalize the publics interest in the space program. After a nationwide search for suitable candidates, elementary school teacher Christa McAuliffe was chosen by NASA to become the first civilian to enter space. However, as millions watched the launch on television, tragedy unfolded just a few seconds after takeoff. The Challenger booster rockets exploded, killing all seven NASA astronauts and leaving the nation in stunned silence.After an extensive investigation into the disaster, the explosion was eventually traced to a faulty o-ring seal in the Challengers rocket booster engine. According to the report released by NASA, the faulty o-ring, coupled with unseasonably cold weather on the morning of the launch led to a catastrophic failure which caused the tragic explosion. The disaster prompted NASA to reevaluate its pre-launch safety procedures and raised serious questions about the viability of the shuttle program.The Columbia Shuttle DisasterDebris from the Space Shuttle Columbia, 2003. Source NASA / Wikimedia CommonsOn February 1, 2003, the crew of the Space Shuttle Columbia began their re-entry procedure to return to Earth after a successful mission to the International Space Station. However, not long after the shuttle began entering Earths atmosphere, NASA lost all contact with the spacecraft. Moments after contact had been lost, civilian observers and military watch stations began to report signs of what appeared to be a meteorite breaking up in the upper atmosphere. Tragically, what was initially thought to be a natural phenomenon turned out to be the Space Shuttle Columbia breaking apart. Somehow, the spacecraft had suffered catastrophic damage, resulting in the deaths of all seven astronauts.After an extensive investigation into the wreckage of Columbia and a detailed analysis of the mission logs and video footage, NASA eventually determined that the tragedy was caused by events that occurred during the launch of the shuttle on January 16 when a large piece of frozen insulation fell loose from a fuel tank and damaged the shuttles heat shield. While the damage was relatively minor, it was enough to allow the superheated gasses caused by re-entry to penetrate the shuttles wing and tear the spacecraft apart. The loss of Columbia caused intense public scrutiny of the Space Shuttle program and grounded the remaining shuttlecraft for many years while the investigation was carried out. To avoid a repeat of the tragedy, NASA ordered a visual check-up procedure of the shuttles heat shield to be included in all future missions to the ISS.Apollo 1: Casualties of The Space RaceThe Crew Of The Apollo 1 Mission, 1967. Source: NASA / Wikimedia CommonsWith the space race intensifying and the Cold War heating up across the world, NASA remained committed during the 1960s to achieve President Kennedys goal of landing Americans on the moon and plowed ahead with an intense timeline of test flights ahead of the Apollo 11 landing. The first step towards completing this task was the Apollo 1 mission, a planned orbital test flight of the command and service modules that would take astronauts to the moon, crewed by Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee.Tragically, the mission ended in disaster before it ever left the launch pad. An electrical fire broke out in the cockpit of the command module and killed all three astronauts. Made worse by the oxygen-rich environment of the module as well as a jammed door, the fire ended Apollo 1 in tragedy. In the wake of the disaster, NASA redesigned the safety features of the Apollo spacecraft from the ground up and placed a greater emphasis on the well-being of its astronaut crews. While Apollo 1 may have ended in tragedy, the mission did teach NASA valuable lessons that were eventually applied to future missions, including the eleventh, which landed safely on the moon in 1969.The Mars Climate OrbiterThe Mars Climate Orbiter undergoing tests, 1998. Source: NASA / Wikimedia CommonsAfter multiple successful missions to the Moon, NASA soon set its sights on Mars. However, given the considerable distances involved, all missions to the red planet have been entirely unmanned probes. While the majority of these probes have carried out their tasks successfully, some lasting for years longer than initially planned, others have failed to reach their destination. The Mars Climate Orbiter, launched on December 11, 1998, was one such failure.Upon approach to the Red Planet, NASA lost contact with the orbiter, and all communication was lost on September 23, 1999. After conducting an in-depth investigation into the failure, an embarrassing error was found in the design of the spacecraft. The orbiters navigational systems operated using the metric system, while one segment of code operated using imperial measurements. This fatal error led to the climate orbiter misjudging its trajectory and eventually burning up in Marss atmosphere.Skylab: Americas First Space StationSkylab 4, 1974. Source: NASA / Wikimedia CommonsSkylab, Americas first space station, was launched on May 14, 1973. The repurposed Saturn V booster rocket was designed to be a permanent orbital science and research station that would allow NASA to conduct a variety of experiments in space. However, shortly after takeoff, Skylab suffered serious damage. A shield designed to protect Skylab from space debris, as well as a solar panel, were both torn off as the craft approached Earths orbit.Confronted with exceedingly high temperatures and fluctuating power levels, the first crewed mission to Skylab was faced with the task of repairing the damaged spacecraft. Equipped with rudimentary repair tools and a makeshift solar shade, the crew succeeded in bringing Skylab back to working order. However, without a substantial heat shield, subsequent crews of the space station complained of intolerable temperatures on board. While the failures of Skylab proved to be a significant challenge for NASA, eventually, the lessons learned led to the successful completion of the International Space Station, one of the longest-serving and failure-free space missions in history.The Constellation ProgramConcept drawing of Constellations Earth departure stage, 2006. Source: NASA / Wikimedia CommonsTo replace the aging Space Shuttle program and achieve their goals of returning to the Moon and exploring Mars, NASA began work on the Constellation program in 2004. The planned Ares rocket system and the newly designed Orion crew vehicle were intended to work together as Americas stepping stone into deep space exploration. However, a combination of safety issues and engineering problems coupled with considerable budget constraints made the Constellation program one of NASAs biggest failures.After years of delays and design concerns relating to the Ares rocket, the Constellation program was canceled by Barack Obamas administration in 2010. However, the Orion crew vehicle designed for the planned Constellation missions to the Moon survived the cancelation and has since been successfully tested by NASA in a Lunar orbital mission.X-33 Venture Star Space PlaneAn Artists impression of the X-33, 1996. Source: NASA / Wikimedia CommonsDuring the 1990s, NASA sought to contract key players in the aerospace industry to build the next generation of American spacecraft. The X-33 VentureStar, designed by Lockheed Martin and NASA, was intended to revolutionize space travel by providing the United States with a completely reusable space plane. Despite the lofty ambitions of the X-33, it never got off the ground.One of the biggest challenges engineers faced when testing the X-33 was maintaining the integrity of the liquid hydrogen fuel tanks. Due to the low temperatures required to store liquid hydrogen, the fuel tanks began to break down over time, leading to catastrophic failures when the rocket engines were tested at full capacity. After multiple years of delays and failures, the X-33 project was canceled in 2001.Nerva: A Failed Gateway to the StarsTesting the NERVA Engine, 1964. Source: NASA / Wikimedia CommonsDuring the 1960s, nations around the world sought innovative ways to harness the power of atomic energy for civilian purposes. One such project was the Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle Application (NERVA) project, an ambitious undertaking that NASA hoped would harness nuclear energy for use in thermal rocket engines. The promise of such an engine was immense. With near-unlimited thrust potential, the NERVA could potentially allow NASA to explore Mars, the solar system, and beyond.However, while initial tests of the NERVA system proved promising, public opinion of nuclear power began to wane and the inherent dangers of nuclear propulsion proved too great for NASA engineers to overcome. By 1973 the NERVA project was canceled by NASA and the concept of nuclear propulsion was brought back to the drawing board.Project OrionAn Artists Impression of Project Orion. Source: NASA / Wikimedia CommonsBefore the ill-fated NERVA nuclear propulsion program, NASA scientists experimented with the idea of an entirely different kind of atomic propulsion. Project Orion, developed during the 1950s, was an ambitious proposal that promised to grant NASA the ability to travel into deep space and beyond. The idea behind the Orion project was to use the immense force generated by the detonation of a small nuclear bomb as a way of propelling a spacecraft forward. With a series of controlled consecutive explosions, the Orion spacecraft could theoretically be propelled to interstellar velocities.However, the incredibly high-risk nature of detonating a nuclear weapon in space, and behind a fragile spacecraft, proved to be too controversial for the brains behind Project Orion to engage with. Eventually, the nuclear test ban treaties of the 1960s and 70s made the feasibility of the Orion program completely unrealistic. The project was shelved in the 1960s and the idea of nuclear propulsion was left to the realms of science fiction.

Celestial Return is a wonderfully strange cyberpunk mystery set in the kind of dystopian world that makes the real world feel somehow less miserable. The majority of the game happens through text and dice rolls, but you get to see hand-drawn backgrounds for visual references that remind me of classic comic books in their style.

I'm someone that wants to like puzzle games, but can also admit to you that several of the big ones in the genre can end up being a bit too much for me. Once it's time to break out the real life graph paper, it's time for me to move onto something else. I don't need easy answers, but I do want to be able to find a solution that makes me feel smart, but that also gives me all the information on screen to figure something out.

In recent days, we've been reviewing the decade's highlights now that we've passed its midpoint, and the truth is, the result has been truly exceptional.