Earth is our common home.

CFCs act upon Earth to open a hole in our stratospheric ozone. If one notes the hole appears over the poles. The two coldest areas of Earth. Even with a warming Earth, the north and south pole will continue to be a place of less temperature than the rest of Earth, but, the question has to be asked, "What happens to the stratospheric ozone when the poles have lost their ice?"

To my knowledge that potential hasn't been breached. The CFC level also effects global warming in that without stratospheric ozone plants (carbon sinks) become sunburned no differently than humans do. What falls into question then is the viability of the plants and the loss of more chlorophyll. To that understanding CFCs are just as much a part of global warming as CO2.

The USA has to take back it's place as the moral leader of the free world. It is simply wrong to allow corruption in our country that diminishes it's image and creates international doubt. Our integrity has never been more important and our faithful morality to future generations never more profound. 

From "Union of Concerned Scientists": 

The image of Earth below shows a hot planet with an easily noted "heat transfer cloud system' from equator to the Arctic Circle.

...Because our atmosphere is one connected system, (click here) it is not surprising that ozone depletion and global warming are related in other ways. For example, evidence suggests that climate change may contribute to thinning of the protective ozone layer....

... Ozone (O3) is found in two different parts of our atmosphere. Ground level ozone, a human health irritant and component of smog, is found in the lower atmosphere (troposphere) and has nothing to do with the "ozone hole." However, ozone in the stratosphere—the layer of atmosphere above the troposphere (see Figure 2)—accounts for the vast majority of atmospheric ozone. Stratospheric ozone is protective of human health as it absorbs ultraviolet radiation from the sun, preventing the radiation from hitting Earth's surface and harming living organisms from this biologically dangerous radiation....

...Stratospheric ozone absorbs energy from the ultraviolet part of the solar spectrum, heating the lower stratosphere. This part of the spectrum accounts for less than one percent of the total solar energy reaching our atmosphere. [1] Stratospheric ozone is important because it prevent dangerous ultraviolet rays from harming plants and animals on Earth's surface, but reductions in the amount of radiation absorbed does not have a measurable impact on temperatures below....

"Good Night, Moon"

The Waning Gibbous
17.4 days old
92.5 percent lit

April 24, 2016
By Phil Plait

Sometime (click here) you see a photograph that’s just so wonderful you can’t wait to show it to other people.

It was taken by Petr Horálek, a European Southern Observatory Ambassador — the Ambassadors are a group of excellent photographers who shoot pictures of the ESO observatories for public outreach.

The photo was taken on April 6, 2016, just minutes before sunrise. Smack dab in the center is Venus, cruel twin of the Earth, covered in clouds so reflective they make the planet the third brightest natural object in our skies.

Below it is the crescent Moon, less than a day before its new phase. The crescent is so thin it’s almost an afterthought. Amazingly, the rest of the Moon’s surface was unlit by the Sun. So why can we see it? Earthshine! Light from the Sun hits the Earth, reflects off of it, illuminating the Moon, which then reflects it back into space, and to Earth. Our planet is very bright in the lunar skies, 50 times brighter than a full Moon. That’s enough to softly bathe the surface of our satellite in light....

J. C. Farman, B. G. Gardiner & J. D. Shanklin. 1985. Large losses of total ozone in Antarctica reveal seasonal ClOx/NOx interaction. Nature 315: 207-10.

The British Antarctic Survey published he work finding the ozone (O3) and NASA had validated the findings with the images we see today.

...Total 03 has been measured (click here) at the British Antarctic Survey stations, Argentine Islands 65deg. S 64deg. W and Halley Bay 76deg. S 27deg. W, since 1957. Figure 1a shows data from Halley Bay. The mean and extreme daily values from October 1957 to March 1973 and the supporting calibrations have been discussed elsewhere [4,5]. The mean daily value for the four latest complete observing seasons (October 1980-March 1984) and the individual daily values for the current observing season are detailed in Fig.1. The more recent data are provisional values. Very generous bounds for possible corrections would be +/-30 matm cm. There was a changeover of spectrophotometers at the station in January 1982; the replacement instrument had been calibrated against the UK Meteorological Office standard in June 1981. Thus, two spectrophotometers have shown October values of total 03 to be much lower than March values, a feature entirely lacking in the 1957-73 data set. To interpret this difference as a seasonal instrumental effect would be inconsistent with the results of routine checks using standard lamps. Instrument temperatures (recorded for each observation) show that the March and October operating conditions were practically identical. Whatever the absolute error of the recent values may be, within the bounds quoted, the annual variation of total 03 at Halley Bay has undergone a dramatic change....

18 April 2015
By Robin McKie

It is popularly (click here) viewed as one of the greatest environmental success stories of modern times. Exactly 30 years ago, UK scientists announced they had discovered a hole in the ozone layer in the atmosphere above Antarctica.
The hole threatened to spread, allowing increased levels of cancer-causing radiation from the sun to reach the ground. Within a few years of the discovery it was agreed to set up the Montreal Protocol, which banned the manmade chemicals responsible for depleting ozone in the upper atmosphere.
But last week, one of the three UK scientists who discovered the hole in 1985 warned that the real lessons of the story had still not been learned. “Yes, an international treaty was established fairly quickly to deal with the ozone hole, but really the main point about its discovery was that it shows how incredibly rapidly we can produce major changes to our atmosphere and how long it takes for nature to recover from them,” said Jon Shanklin of the British Antarctic Survey.
“Clearly, we still do not understand the full consequences of what we did then because we are still inflicting major changes on the atmosphere. Then it was chlorofluorocarbons; today it is greenhouse gases.”...

July 13, 2012
By Mark Clayton

The United States (click here) is posting rapid growth in the waste of natural gas in new oil fields where the fuel is either burned of vented into the atmosphere. Experts say the process damages the environment and fails to maximize the return to investors....

Where is the US EPA? Why are people not in prison? The CEOs of these companies beyond in prison.

January 18, 2013

By USSpin Watcher

A reporter for NPR (click here) discovered a strange new light (see circled area above) where there used to be only North Dakota grassland.  The light is produced by a massive 15,000 square mile area of fracking natural gas flareoffs produced by over 150 companies who have determined that it's cheaper to burn-off about 29% of the natural gas that is produced by their oil wells.  

The current levels of burning gas from the field inject two million tons of carbon dioxide into the air each year which is the equivalent amount of pollution caused by 2.5 million cars.  The flares produce carbon oxides, nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide and particulates.

The burnoff is equivalent to 30% of the total U.S. natural gas production. 

Currently, there is no legislation that requires fracking companies to recapture the natural gas they produce through fracking, although it's only slightly more expensive to recapture the natural gas.  Most of the companies have obtained government permission for the flare-offs with annual renewals.  The industry argues that until the wells are completed it's too expensive to recapture the natural gas....

These are the morons that crashed the price of oil, demanded corrupt politicians to legislate oil exportations to the entire world from the USA and have endangered the lives of Americas with their oil trains. They are ruthless, careless and criminal in their intentions for the global economy.

January 16, 2016
By Robert Krulwich

...On the other hand, (click here) says Peter Lehner, blogger for the Natural Resources Defense Council, every day drillers in North Dakota "burn off enough gas to heat half a million homes." North Dakota law says that flares are subject to taxes and royalties after one year, even if the gas isn't being sold. But critics suspect that the state keeps granting exceptions. And state regulators seem less than energetic when farmers call to complain about poisons in the air and water. Many farmers in North Dakota can't prevent drillers from drilling — even if they'd like to. Decades ago, the rights to the minerals below those farms were separated from the rights to the land itself — which is why today, energy companies can move in, create drilling pads where they please, move in trucks and workers, without the farmers' consent. In some places, North Dakota feels like Texas in the early 20th century, when cattlemen fought the oil men. This time it's corn folks versus oil folks. Tempers are rising. Gas is burning. Drillers are drilling.

"The Montreal Protocol"

The Montreal Protocol (click here) divides ozone depleting substances into a variety of lists of chemicals that are subject to different control requirements. Countries that sign the treaty commit to

1) stop consumption or production of chemicals on Group 1 of Annex A after January 1, 1996 (CFC 11, CFC 12, CFC 113, CFC 114, and CFC 115).

2) stop consumption or production of chemicals on Group 2 of Annex A after January 1, 1994 (Halon 1211, Halon 1301, and Halon 2402.)

3) stop consumption or production of chemicals on Groups 1, 2 and 3 of Annex B after January 1, 1996 (CFC 13, CFC 111, CFC 112, CFC 211, CFC 212, CFC 213, CFC 214, CFC 215, CFC 216, CFC 217, carbon tetrachloride, and 1,1,1-trichloroethane)

4) reduce consumption or production of hydrochlorofluorocarbons listed in Group 1 of Annex C to 1989 levels

5) reduce consumption or production of methyl bromide to 75% of 1991 levels beginning in 1999.

EPA has issued regulations issued under sections 601-607 of the Clean Air Act to implement the Montreal Protocol and phase out the production of several ozone-depleting substances. EPA utilizes a different classification system for identifying chemicals for regulatory controls, dividing the universe of substances covered by the Montreal Protocol into Class I and Class II ozone depleting substances.
More on EPA regulations for phasing out Class I ozone depleting substances.
More on EPA's regulations for controlling all ozone depleting substances.

Does the USA ever live up to it's expectations? Has it no moral content anymore?

I am really getting the feeling the USA is the most amoral country in the world when it comes to environmental responsibility. There are reasons why the USA is not trusted anymore.

Note that while the Montreal Protocol mandates an end to the production and consumption of the major CFCs, halons, hydrobromofluorocarbons and methyl bromide by 1996, there continue to be substantial releases of some of these substances in the U.S. (based on industry reports to TRI). Implementation of the Montreal Protocol is dependent on national regulation, and in the U.S. the EPA has focused on eliminating production of Class I ozone depleting substances by the treaty's phase-out dates. Use of previously produced stocks of ozone depleting substances was not banned as of January 1, 1996, and releases to the atmosphere continue. Facilities reporting releases of Class I ozone depleting substances may have been legally using previously produced stocks or operating under essential use exemptions, or they may have been operating illegally. EPA is currently actively enforcing the CAA restrictions on uses of ozone depleting chemicals....

January 23 - 30, 2014 (click here)
While much of the continental United States endured several cold snaps in January 2014, record-breaking warmth gripped Alaska. Spring-like conditions set rivers rising and avalanches tumbling.

This map depicts land surface temperature anomalies in Alaska for January 23–30, 2014. Based on data from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite, the map shows how 2014 temperatures compared to the 2001–2010 average for the same week. Areas with warmer than average temperatures are shown in red; near-normal temperatures are white; and areas that were cooler than the base period are blue. Gray indicates oceans or areas where clouds blocked the satellite from collecting usable data.

A persistent ridge of high pressure off the Pacific Coast fueled the warm spell, shunting warm air and rainstorms to Alaska instead of California, where they normally end up. The last half of January was one of the warmest winter periods in Alaska’s history, with temperatures as much as 40°F (22°C) above normal on some days in the central and western portions of the state, according to Weather Underground’s Christopher Bart. The all-time warmest January temperature ever observed in Alaska was tied on January 27 when the temperature peaked at 62°F (16.7°C) at Port Alsworth. Numerous other locations—including Nome, Denali Park Headquarters, Palmer, Homer, Alyseka, Seward, Talkeetna, and Kotzebue—all set January records....

The record snow falls of 2010-2011 and 2013-2014 are among the seventh highest amounts in the history of New York City with 2010-2011 being the highest.

February 14, 2014
By Jen Chung 
 
Mayor de Blasio (click here) has been worked over for his response to snow storms—he's barely been in office for two months and NYC has seen about 54 inches of snow! Compare that with Mayor's Bloomberg's first months as mayor—the 2001-2002 winter season only had 3.5 inches of snow (and he didn't give his first snow day until 2004).
With news that NYC's snowfall accumulation for the 2013-2014 season cracked the top 10 for the snowiest winters on record, we decided to look at how crazy this snowfall is compared to other years. And guess what—it's definitely one of the snowiest! Especially when you consider how March still lingers on the calendar, pregnant with potential for more powder. And history reminds us that there was a rare April blizzard (April 7, 1982, when 9.6 inches fell in Central Park....

The effects of CFCs are real and measurable. (click here)

The delisting of the Yellowstone Bear lacks insight to it's future.

The whitebark pine (click here) and the Clark’s Nutcracker are evolutionary soul mates that help hold an ecosystem together. At high elevations in the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem, whitebark pines depend entirely on nutcrackers to disperse their seeds. The pine nuts contain more calories than butter and provide food for more than 100 species, including (counterclockwise from bottom left) red squirrel, chipmunk, Cassin’s Finch, grizzly bear, Mountain Chickadee, and Hairy Woodpecker. Whitebark pines are also pioneers in mountain clearings and act as nurse trees (pictured center left) for spruces and firs to grow up. Illustration by Misaki Ouchida, Bartels Science Illustration Intern.

April 22, 2016

By Eric Whitney

...WHITNEY: Dan Ashe is the director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. (click here)

ASHE: The population is fully recovered, and we need to recognize that and let the Endangered Species Act work on other species that need its protections.

WHITNEY: But other wildlife biologists look at the evidence and come to a different conclusion.

DAVID MATTSON: I think if you put a little magnification on Livingston Peak, it makes everything pretty darn clear.

WHITNEY: David Mattson hands me a pair of binoculars to point out what he says is a big problem for bears and the government's plans to remove their Endangered Species Act protections. He's spent more than 20 years studying Yellowstone's grizzlies, especially what they eat.

MATTSON: And what you're going to see, if the focus is right for you...

WHITNEY: A lot of dead trees.

MATTSON: A lot of dead trees. All of those are whitebark pine.

WHITNEY: Whitebark pine trees are at the heart oft he fight over protecting Yellowstone's grizzlies. Despite their reputation as ferocious killers, grizzlies here have long relied on seeds from whitebark pine trees as a primary food source, and climate change is wiping out the trees. A federal appellate court said the Fish and Wildlife Service failed to account for the loss of whitebark pine in 2005, the last time the agency tried to take these bears off the endangered species list.

Mattson says climate change is diminishing other important grizzly food sources, too. That means bears are roaming farther and taking more risks, feeding on things like elk and domestic cattle. And that, he says, means more bear encounters with ranchers and big-game hunters. More encounters usually means more dead bears. But the Fish and Wildlife Service says Yellowstone's grizzly population is robust enough to adapt to new food sources and survive....

List of CFCs and their concentrations as of April 2016. (click here)

Lake Vostok (click here) in Antarctica has been in place since it's first discovery in 1959. It is actually 1600 feet below sea level. It is closed off to the Circumpolar Ocean  (The East and West Wind Drifts) surrounding Antarctica. 

The distinctive feature of Lake Vostok is the smooth as glass appearance at the top of the ice. The ice in Antarctica flows. Regardless, of it's movement the section moving over the lake always remains without a ripple. Lake Vostok is liquid because of the pressure of the ice above it which includes 3769 meters. It has the purest water in the world.

When the Russians reached the lake they were met with enormous pressure that refroze the drill hole. The reports of life in that lake begins with this:

July 8, 2013
By Becky Oskin
 
Microbes (click here) that live inside fish intestines are among the array of life that appear to have been found in ice drilled from above Lake Vostok, the deepest lake buried beneath Antarctica's ice sheet....







The issue with Greenland is very different. There are innumerable entries about the Greenland ice on this blog. NASA takes pictures regularly and measures what is called 'the meander' of the glacier. Greenland Ice, like Antarctica, sits a top land and it's base is frozen into those dips in the landscape, but, every Spring with top melt water from the sun, there is a hydraulic effect and the glacier floats and meanders over the land. 

If there are glacial lakes under the Greenland Ice, it is not due to pressure of the ice above so much as the hydraulic effect of the melt water. The water mass is probably greater this Spring than any other.  

Greenland Melt Extent (click here) 

The graph to the right shows the season's beginning. It is not good news.

Streams and rivers that form on top of the Greenland ice sheet during spring and summer are the main agent transporting melt runoff from the ice sheet to the ocean. Credits: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Maria-José Viñas


September 22, 2015
By Pakalolo

The Greenland ice sheet (click here) is the largest body of permanent ice in the Northern Hemisphere. Climate Change is happening swiftly in the Arctic, and consequently it is causing rapid and relentless melting of the sheet from both above (Albedo or dark ice) and below the ice due to warming ocean temperatures as well as large volumes of warm melt water at the bedrock). Most of us know that this run away melting is raising sea levels across the Globe. The hydrologic system of the Greenland ice sheet is extremely complex and there has been little data about how it works for some time. Slowly we are beginning to solve some  mysteries.
Each summer, the hydrological system becomes activated as massive amounts of melt water produced on its surface, evaporates into the atmosphere, percolates into partially formed layers of ice, and feeds runoff into supraglacial lakes (a lake formed on top of the ice sheet), streams and rivers to the ice sheet margins.
Recently 2 sub-glacial lakes were discovered in Greenland. These lakes form below the ice and can stay unfrozen for decades. Particularly unusual is the fact that these lakes are associated with Antarctica and not the Arctic. They were unknown in Greenland until recently. The sub-glacial lake can be stable for decades, but can drain in one season and refill quickly with melt water from the surface....

Chlorofluorocarbon (CFC)

They come in different formulas, but, the culprit in this greenhouse gas is sunlight and fluorine. 

Fluorine has an atomic number 9 on the Periodic Chart of Chemicals. It has five electrons in it's outer shell and is highly reactive. Fluorine has the highest electronegativity of all the elements.

Fluorine (click here) is the most reactive of all elements and no chemical substance is capable of freeing fluorine from any of its compounds. For this reason, fluorine does not occur free in nature and was extremely difficult for scientists to isolate. The first recorded use of a fluorine compound dates to around 1670 to a set of instructions for etching glass that called for Bohemian emerald (CaF₂). Chemists attempted to identify the material that was capable of etching glass and George Gore was able to produce a small amount of fluorine through an electrolytic process in 1869....

How many people knew their recycling was going to China?

September 18, 2013
By Jen Hayden

...China's demand for low-cost recycled raw materials (click here) has meant waste shipments from Europe, the US, Japan and Hong Kong have arrived thick and fast, with scrap becoming the top US export to China by value ($11.3bn) in 2011.
China controls a large portion of the recycling market, importing about 70% of the world's 500m tonnes of electronic waste and 12m tonnes of plastic waste each year. Sudden Chinese policy changes therefore have a significant impact on the global recycling trade, which puts pressure on western countries to reconsider their reliance on the cost-effective practice of exporting waste, a habit that's reinforced by a lack of domestic recycling infrastructure and a lower demand for secondary raw materials....

There needs to be a chain of custody to the recycling from recycling centers to final destination. People need to know these programs are effective and keeps the recycled items out of the oceans.

No more floating bundles of trash tumbling off the ships in the middle of the ocean.

Fishermen (click here) set out amid floating garbage off the shore of Manila Bay in the Philippines on June 8, 2013. 

December 11, 2014
By Charles Omedo

Researchers (click here) are surprised that humans generate as much as 10 trillion pieces of plastic wastes the world over, and that about 5.25 trillion find their ways into oceans and rivers, and weigh as much as 269,000 tons to keep on floating across ocean surfaces.

The co-founder of 5 Gyres Institute, Dr. Marcus Eriksen, led a team of researchers aboard ships to scour the surfaces of oceans and collected thousands of plastic wastes among other discarded items like toys, bags, toothbrushes, bottles, disused fishing nets and buoys, and other floating trash and debris....

Quick review of the Greenhouse Gases.

They are all organic compounds.

It is Sunday Night

"Planet Earth" by Prince (click here for online fan community)

Imagine holding Planet Earth in the palm of your hand
With no regard for your place of birth or claim to any land
The only thing between us now is the truth we understand
If Planet Earth was in the palm of your hand

50 years from now what will they say about us here?
Did we care for the water and the fragile atmosphere?
There are only two kinds of folk and the difference they make
The ones that give and the ones that take

Just like the countless bodies that revolve around the sun
Planet Earth must now come into balance with the one
That caused it all to be and then we'll see His kingdom come
So shall it be written, shall be sung

Imagine you could rid the Earth of anyone you choose
Which ones would you need the most and which ones would you lose?
Do we wanna judge another lest we be judged too?
Careful now, the next one might be you, yeah

Just like the countless bodies that revolve around the sun
Planet Earth must now come into balance with the one
That caused it all to be and then we'll see His kingdom come
So shall it be written, shall be sung

Imagine sending your first born off to fight a war
With no good reason how it started and what they're fighting for
And if they're blessed to make it home, will they still be poor?
Pray for peace right now and forever more

Just like the countless bodies that revolve around the sun
Planet Earth must now come into balance with the one
That caused it all to be and then we'll see His kingdom come

So shall it be written, shall be sung

Just like the countless bodies that revolve around the sun
Planet Earth must now come into balance with the one
That caused it all to be and then we'll see His kingdom come

So shall it be written, shall be sung, shall be sung

So shall it be written, so shall it be sung

If no one believes the law of the land is effective, then it won't be because of an undermining culture.

I feel sorry for Mr. Uhlmann and I can't believe he and Bush aren't behind bars for the corruption they practiced, but, that is what power is all about, right?

For eight long years the Bush administration raped the USA of it's dignity in the name of something they called an economy. In 2005, Cheney created an energy document that declares war on the Middle East and the Caspian Sea and turns loose fracking which was marginal and stupid.

Now, Mr. Uhlmann wants us to believe that actual justice is somewhat out of reach in Flint, Michigan. More corruption, Mr. Uhlmann?

That is the way I see it. There are Americans. Good people. People that lived for the freedom guaranteed to law abiding citizens and the people of Flint are law abiding citizens. I am absolutely certain the Michigan's Attorney General is only dabbling in corruption by taking aim at people without power. I am confident of that. Such power structure takes time to knock down, but, it will be knocked down. 

April 22, 2016
By David M. Uhlmann

...It’s clear that government officials betrayed Flint residents, (click here) first by switching the city’s drinking water system to the polluted Flint River and failing to keep lead from leaching into the water, and then by ignoring complaints and dragging their feet for months in responding.

But it is not clear that prosecutors have a strong enough case to exact the accountability that Flint residents deserve.

I spent nearly two decades prosecuting environmental crimes for the Justice Department. If there is sufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendants committed crimes, justice demands criminal charges. But justice also requires that prosecutors make charging decisions based solely on the evidence....

Mr. Uhlmann believes in corruption otherwise he wouldn't stand for it. He has justified the idea that power is never prosecuted as in the USA government and the Wall Street banks and collapse. AGREEMENTS are so much better, especially when as charismatic as Jamie Dimon. Those agreements are corruption. There is no other name for it and it makes complete sense that "W" loved them above the law.

In Flint, Michigan are innocent people confronted by a diabolical and cruel governor that loves power more than people. He loves power so much he made himself king and found a warlord to place at the head of Michigan state agencies. 

No, Mr. Uhlmann, this time the powerful will find out what REAL law abiding citizens do when the government is as corrupt as the day is long, and the day is getting very long again.

He's Harvard? This is hate speech.

Mr. Metrosexual doesn't understand these people? Oh.

Harvard Undergraduate LGBTQ Business Society (HUBB) (click here)

Harvard doesn't discriminate or force any individual into a corner of isolation. Ted Cruz is seeking to turn transgender people into pedophiles. Is he really a lawyer? I don't want him in the White House that's for sure.

Donald Trump's invitation to his followers to become a valuable part of the mainstream political stage may be backfiring.

In an very occasional interview when asked who one is voting for I have heard, "I was for Donald Trump, but, now I think he doesn't have a good diplomatic manner. I am changing my mind about voting for him."

The answer to his invitation may not be devotion to the head of the party.

With the exposure to the real challenge of voting for a president is a new pressure, being part of mainstream America carries enlightenment to mainstream behavior. Now, men (and not women) are toning their own diplomatic dialogue to be accepted by friends. Men like being part of a team, but, they also like being a leader themselves. A movement may have a price Donald Trump hasn't realized yet.

Therefore, what?

How many private aircraft owners have declared bankruptcy? He bought his jets in a reasonable method. I am sure the former owners were happy to get the money.

I don't recall Republicans complaining about his jets before.

The words you won't hear from Donald Trump is "...the 47 percent...". Donald Trump has taken the least wealthy of the Republican Party under his wing. It is just that simple. He is popular because he entertains their idea of life and upholds their culture. He won't be insulting them or pretending the 47 percent doesn't include Republicans. He is running because he doesn't believe anyone else, including all the Republican stalwarts, will ever be able to do what he can for them.

Oh, yes, unbeknownst to the elite, the 47 percent definitely includes Republicans from RED STATES.

Questions?

April 24, 2016
By Susanne Craig

...After Mr. Trump (click here) took possession of the 757 in 2011 he made a number of changes but did not fundamentally undo Mr. Allen’s initial renovation, records show. For instance, he kept the headboard in the master bedroom, as well as most of the chairs, couches and toilet seats Mr. Allen had left, choosing to reupholster them.

Greg Raiff, chief executive officer of Private Jet Services, an aviation consulting firm and private-jet charter broker for corporations and individuals, said the Boeing was an unusual aircraft for a man of Mr. Trump’s wealth. “Buying a 25-year-old 757 is like buying a bag of Cheetos. It’s a lot of food for a low price,” he said.

The Cessna was previously owned by NetJets, an aircraft company that caters to the nation’s wealthiest people, and has flown more than other planes its age, records show. It was worth $15.3 million new and has a current resale value of approximately $3.2 million, according to an estimate by Vref Publishing, a company that supplies information about aircraft values. The Times paid Vref to value the plane based on publicly available information....

Prince's sister, Tyka Nelson wlll inherit all his fortune.

Tyka Nelson doesn't hide her hard life, but, she and her brother Prince has been getting along making her life a bit easier. Tyka Nelson is an artist as well and will be inheriting Prince's treasure trove of unpublished work. The world awaits.

April 24, 2016

Prince's sister (click here) is set to inherit his estate, along with a huge catalogue of unreleased music.
Tyka Nelson, 55, who has been staying at her brother's estate outside Minneapolis, will be awarded Prince's estate under Minnesota state law as his closest living relative. Their parents are dead.
Prince has an approximate net worth of US$300 million ($438m), which does not include the millions his estate could make in the coming weeks.
His music catalogue is worth more than US$500 million, according to Prince's first manager Owen Husney.
Unlike other artists, he owned his master recordings and his own music publishing.
Nelson and her brother were close in recent years after a difficult stretch in their relationship when Nelson was struggling with an addiction to crack cocaine and prostituting herself to support her young sons, Sir Montece Laeil Nelson and President LenNard Laeil Nelson....