Jan Thompson

This morning, history was made in Tampa Bay with Florida’s first Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) electric aircraft demonstration flights. From the first commercial airline flight over Tampa Bay in 1914, to today’s AAM demonstrations along that same historic route, Florida has long been a launchpad for new ideas that shape the future of transportation.   I’m proud that Florida is a place where groundbreaking transportation technologies can be developed and deployed. Thanks to strategic investments, education partnerships, and policies that promote innovation, we’re ensuring that Florida continues to lead the way in aviation and aerospace.

Best ad for the company that built that fence.

Anybody born after Oct. 30, 2000, has never known a day without a human presence in space. Since the beginning of the first expedition 26 years ago on Nov 2, the International Space Station has been inhabited continuously. 📷 The @Space_Station in 2010

Meet the white-browed tit-warbler, the bird with a beautiful rainbow color. Such a gorgeous creature. It's hard to believe it's real.

Benjamin Slyngstad drew the perfect obituary for Sir Patrick #cartoon

Some of the Weirdest Facts from U.S. States

A 3-year-old boy was kidnapped from a public library, and less than an hour later, he was sitting on a city bus beside the man who had taken him. The little boy was crying, and the other passengers had no idea he had been abducted. But when the bus driver looked at the child, he suddenly realized he matched the description of a missing boy police were desperately searching for. It happened in Milpitas, California. Bus driver Tim Watson had heard the police alert about a missing 3-year-old boy earlier that day. When a man boarded his bus with a crying child, something didn’t seem right. The more Tim looked at the little boy, the more he suspected he was the child everyone was searching for. But Tim couldn’t risk confronting the man. If he was the kidnapper, one wrong move could put the little boy in even greater danger. So Tim came up with a clever plan. He announced to the passengers that someone had reported a missing green backpack and began walking through the bus, pretending to search for it. As he moved past the man and child, Tim got a closer look and confirmed his suspicions. He quietly contacted dispatch to alert police, then returned to his seat and continued driving as though nothing had happened. All the while, the suspected kidnapper remained on board, completely unaware that the driver had recognized the child. Tim kept his composure until police were able to intercept the bus. Officers rushed aboard, arrested the suspect, and brought the little boy to safety. Thanks to one observant bus driver who refused to ignore his instincts, a terrifying kidnapping ended with a child being returned to his family. Tim Watson wasn’t a police officer or a trained rescuer. He was simply a bus driver who recognized a child in danger and found a way to save him without putting him at greater risk. Let’s give this incredible man the recognition he deserves.

Fair winds and following seas, Stan Nelson. We will remember you.

The future of air travel has landed in Florida.

Michelangelo was only 6 years old when his mother died in 1481, and he spent much of his childhood with a nanny whose husband was a stonecutter. Years later, according to Vasari, he joked that "along with the milk of my nurse" he had received "the knack of handling chisel and hammer." Seventeen years after his mother’s death, in August 1498, a French cardinal in Rome signed a contract with the 23-year-old sculptor for "a clothed Virgin Mary with dead Christ in her arms," meant for his funeral chapel in the old basilica of St. Peter’s. Michelangelo travelled to the quarries of Carrara to choose the marble himself, and the banker who guaranteed the contract promised it would be "the most beautiful marble work in Rome." Even Vasari, writing in 1550, could hardly believe what he was looking at: "It is certainly a miracle that a stone, at first with no form at all, was ever reduced to that perfection that nature barely manages to form in flesh." Whenever I see this masterpiece, I think of a six-year-old boy who no longer had his mother’s arms to hold him, who grew up among the hammers and chisels of a stonecutter’s home, and who, seventeen years later, gave the world the most loving arms ever carved in stone…

🤝 Most and least trusted professions worldwide (2026) Net trust: % who trust minus % who distrust 🩺 Doctors: +43 🔬 Scientists: +42 👩‍🏫 Teachers: +37 🪖 Armed forces: +16 🏋️ Personal trainers: +10 💡 Tech entrepreneurs: +6 ⚖️ Judges: +5 👮 Police: +5 📜 Lawyers: 0 📊 Pollsters: −2 📺 TV news anchors: −3 💼 Business leaders: −8 🏛️ Government officials / civil servants: −9 📰 Journalists: −10 🏦 Bankers: −10 ⛪ Clergy / priests: −11 📣 Advertising executives: −26 🎩 Government ministers: −37 📱 Social media influencers: −44 🗳️ Politicians: −48 Net trust is the share of people who trust each profession minus the share who distrust it. Average across 31 countries, online survey, June–July 2026. Source: Ipsos

It still blows my mind that the speed of light is 299,792,458 meters per second ... and the latitude of the Great Pyramid of Giza is 29.9792458° North. Coincidence?