Voting from space? More likely than you think!

Happening in the World: In the aftermath of one of the largest incidents of whale breaching ever recorded—wildlife officials in Tasmania began disposing of hundreds of dead pilot whales after ending rescue attempts. Rescuers were able to save 108 out of the 470 whales that landed on a wide, remote sandbank in Tasmania’s Macquarie Harbor. Scientists’ understanding of why this occurred is still incomplete, but some say that in this case, the whales may have taken a wrong turn, chasing their prey into shallow waters or followed a dying matriarch. (NYTimes)

Happening in the US: NASA Astronaut Kate Rubins plans to vote from the International Space Station on election day this November. Dr. Rubins has a doctoral degree in cancer biology and was the first person to sequence DNA in space. Instead of relying on the postal service to send in her absentee ballot, Dr. Rubins will get hers forwarded electronically from Mission Control in Houston. She will then downlink them back to Earth to submit her ballot. This is the second time Dr. Rubins will have voted from space, with the last time marking her address as “low-Earth orbit.” (NPR)

Happening in NYC: The city and the teachers union have revised their agreement to allow educators to work remotely if they are teaching remote learning students. This comes after worries that teachers would put their relatives at risk for contracting COVID-19, in addition to questions of why they have to teach remotely from the school. The updated agreement says that educators with live-in relatives suffering from pre-existing medical conditions that make them vulnerable will be given priority to work from home. This decision comes as 540,000 elementary and middle school students head back to in-person learning this Tuesday with 460,000 expected to begin remote learning. (Gothamist)

Happening in Our Community: On Thursday, the Milstein Center’s Movement Lab is hosting Artist-in-Residence Marianela Boán in conversation with Marlène Ramírez-Cancio. Boán is an award-winning and internationally acclaimed choreographer and will be discussing her artistic practice and journey. The conversation will take place on October 1st from 5:30 pm to 7:00 pm EDT and it will be in Spanish with English subtitles. (Movement Lab)

Documentary of the Week: The Mandalorian (minus Gina Carano)

look at all these chickens via Wikimedia Commons