The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Horoscopes
Aries (March 21-April 19):
You want to know that someone has your back and is willing and able to enter into the spirit of what you’re doing to some extent, however pleasant or unpleasant that may be. So you test, and quite expertly!
Taurus (April 20-May 20): The Spanish tradition of relaxing at the table after a heavy meal and talking for an hour or so is called sobremesa, or “over the table.” Your day offers a similar opportunity to bond and share information.
Gemini (May 21-June 21): Various lessons will be imparted, some seemingly more useful than others. Take note, regardless, to accommodate unforeseeable applications that will surely arise in the far-flung future.
Cancer (June 22-July 22): Just when you think you know where everything belongs, there’s a country cat on a crosswalk; in the window of a high-rise, the silhouette of a mouse, or, in today’s case, the non-animal equivalent of these things.
Leo (July 23-Aug. 22): Though it might be convenient to be better and more widely understood, you’re not willing to trade validation for your right to complexity. So those enigmatic parts of you remain, mysterious to all, even to yourself.
Virgo (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): When it’s your game, you’re allowed to write rules, name the prizes and dole out the hints, too. Consider also that the most popular and enjoyable games tend to, once established, stay consistent within their own limitations.
Libra (Sept. 23-Oct. 23):
The innocence you once had will not return. In its place is a custom-made sword and shield, which you will use to defend the innocence of others, as you understand its preciousness more than anyone.
Scorpio (Oct. 24-Nov. 21):
You’ll get the sneaking suspicion that someone is trying to live vicariously through you. It’s not a terrible dynamic, as you are loved, tended to and supported, though sometimes held with too firm a grip.
Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 21):
In a tweet of hope, author Anand Giridharadas writes, “We are falling on our face because we are jumping high.” You’ve recently fallen, and it was for a good cause. Today’s risk will be more temperate and graceful.
Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 19):
Each emotion has its preferred animation style. Joy jumps. Melancholy settles. Jealousy creeps. Today, you may have feelings
you can’t name, but track their movement and later it will come to you.
Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 18):
Many who seek attention are also looking for validation. You don’t need that. You need people who want what you can offer. You focus not on showing off but on showing enough so that you can find your right audience.
Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20):
Just being where the conversation goes down is an initiation of sorts. All who witness are influenced and all who weren’t there are outsiders on the matter. It’s why you make an effort to be involved.
Today’s birthday (Feb. 19):
This year is a study in contrasts. As it becomes clear what you’re doing, who to involve and how you feel about it, your productivity soars. The clear lines between what’s for you and what’s not for you make it easy to schedule and execute plans. You’ll aim high with a goal and meet it in May. Virgo and Scorpio adore you. Your lucky numbers are: 8, 13, 2, 28 and 17.
A NASA rover streaked through the orange Martian sky and landed on the planet Thursday, accomplishing the riskiest step yet in an epic quest to bring back rocks that could answer whether life ever existed on Mars.
Ground controllers at the space agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, leaped to their feet, thrust their arms in the air and cheered in both triumph and relief on receiving confirmation that the six-wheeled Perseverance had touched down on the red planet, long a deathtrap for incoming spacecraft.
It took a tension-filled 11 1/2 minutes for the signal to reach Earth.
“Touchdown confirmed! Perseverance safely on the surface of Mars, ready to begin seeking signs of past life,” flight controller Swati Mohan announced to backslapping, fist-bumping colleagues wearing masks against the coronavirus.
The landing marks the third visit to Mars in just over a week. Two spacecraft from the United Arab Emirates and China swung into orbit around Mars on successive days last week. All three missions lifted off in July to take advantage of the close alignment of Earth and Mars, journeying some 300 million miles in nearly seven months.
Perseverance, the biggest, most advanced rover ever sent by NASA, became the ninth spacecraft since the 1970s to successfully land on Mars, every one of them from the U.S.
The car-size, plutonium-powered vehicle arrived at Jezero Crater, hitting NASA’s smallest and trickiest target yet: a 5-by4-mile strip on an ancient river delta full of pits, cliffs and fields of rock. Scientists believe that if life ever flourished on Mars, it would have happened 3 billion to 4 billion years ago, when water still flowed on the planet.
Over the next two years, Percy, as it is nicknamed, will use its 7-foot arm to drill down and collect rock samples with possible signs of bygone microscopic life. Three to four dozen chalksize samples will be sealed in tubes and set aside on Mars to be retrieved by a fetch rover and brought homeward by another rocket ship. The goal is to get them back to Earth as early as 2031.
Scientists hope to answer one of the central questions of theology, philosophy and space exploration.
“Are we alone in this sort of vast cosmic desert, just flying through space, or is life much more common? Does it just emerge whenever and wherever the conditions are ripe?” said deputy project scientist Ken Williford. “We’re really on the verge of being able to potentially answer these enormous questions.”
China’s spacecraft includes a smaller rover that also will be seeking evidence of life — if it makes it safely down from orbit in May or June.
Two older NASA landers are still humming along on Mars: 2012s Curiosity rover and 2018s InSight.
Perseverance was on its own during its descent, a maneuver often described by NASA as “seven minutes of terror.”
Flight controllers waited helplessly as the preprogrammed spacecraft hit the thin Martian atmosphere at 12,100 mph, or 16 times the speed of sound, slowing as it plummeted. It released its 70foot parachute and then used a rocket-steered platform known as a sky crane to lower the rover the final 60 or so feet to the surface.
Perseverance promptly sent back two grainy, black-and-white photos of Mars’ pockmarked, pimply-looking surface, the rover’s shadow visible in the frame of one picture. The rover appeared to have touched down about 35 yards from the nearest rocks.
“Take that, Jezero!” a controller called out.
Mars has proved a treacherous place. In the span of less than three months in 1999, a U.S. spacecraft was destroyed upon entering orbit because engineers had mixed up metric and English units, and an American lander crashed on Mars after its engines cut out prematurely.
In addition to mining the rocks, Perseverance will conduct an experiment in which it will convert small amounts of the mostly carbon dioxide atmosphere into oxygen, a process that could be a boon to future astronauts by providing breathable air and an ingredient for rocket fuel.
The rover is also equipped with a record 25 cameras and two microphones, many of them turned on during descent. Among the never-before-seen views NASA intends to send back in the next couple days: the enormous supersonic parachute billowing open and the ground getting closer.
“A feast for the eyes and ears. It’s really going to be spectacular,” observed Arizona State University’s Jim Bell, lead scientist for a pair of mast cameras that will serve as the rover’s eyes.
The litany of wrestlers who have come through Lake Catholic is a long and distinguished one.
From the program’s first state champion Dean DeLillo in 1975 to two-time champion Anthony Tutolo to three-time champion Kevon Freeman — not to mention the Cougars’ team state title in 1989 — Lake Catholic has been a verifiable Who’s Who in Northeast Ohio and Lake County wrestling.
Even with that rich history, current senior Cole Hivnor has done what no other in the green and gray has ever done.
Hivnor recently picked up his 100th career pin.
“It’s pretty cool,” said Hivnor, ferociously competitive on the mat but far from the verbal, rahrah type. “I never thought about getting 100 pins until this year. But to be the first in Lake Catholic history to do it is pretty cool.”
The son of Lake Catholic wrestling coach Scott Hivnor picked up his first pin as a freshman 170-pounder at the Solon Comet Classic, quite a feat in itself because the higher weight classes are usually loaded with upperclassmen.
After collecting 22 pins as a freshman, Hivnor set a program record a year later with 27 pins, eclipsing the former record of 26 held by Freeman. Hivnor then equaled that mark with 27 pins as a junior
He has 24 pins this season heading into the Division II sectional next weekend, giving him 100 pins — out of a total 148 total victories — for his career.
Hivnor is 33-1 this season at 182 pounds. Only four times has he gone the distance — the rest came via pins.
“The fact that no one had ever done this in our program before now is a pretty big thing,” said proud papa/coach Scott Hivnor. “He gets a lot of pins.”
It’s been that way since he picked up the sport as a kindergartner. Even though he said he “didn’t take it too seriously” when he was younger, he was a very good wrestler.
Hivnor was a junior high state champion and also won a few state titles in freestyle.
He’s been no stranger to the state individual tournament, either. He was a fifth-place finisher as a freshman and a fourthplace finisher as a sophomore before the COVID pandemic wiped out his bid for a state championship last year as a junior.
Which puts quite a bit of emphasis on this, his senior year of wrestling a Lake Catholic.
“The pin record is a cool accomplishment for sure,” Hivnor said. “But the goal has never been to get 100 pins. I’d rather have a state title.”
When he’s finished with his record-setting career at Lake Catholic, Hivnor is headed to Pitt on a wrestling scholarship. He chose Pitt over George Mason, Northern Illinois, Cleveland State, Ohio University, Gardner Webb and Clarion.
He plans on majoring in business.
“I’m excited for that,” Hivnor said of wrestling on the college level. “They have great coaches there and a new training center they’re building, the same type of thing they have at Ohio State. Both times I visited there, I loved it.”
College remains a ways away, though, and for now Hivnor is continuously working toward his goal of winning a Division II state championship before he graduates.
He’s been working diligently on his feet, which when coupled with his prowess in top position would make him even tougher to beat.
“I’ve been working on my feet. That’s where I need the most work,” he said. “If I can take you down, I’m pretty confident in my ability to hold you down there.” And pin.
A lot.
“When I got my first pin as a freshman at 170, I remember my first thought was, “Man, these kids are STRONG,” he said. “I never imagined getting 100 pins. But now that got it, yeah, it’s pretty cool.”