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After a tumultuous 2025 that saw it lose around 4,000 employees, NASA finally has an operating budget for 2026, and one that largely preserves its scientific capabilities. On Thursday, the Senate passed an appropriations bill funding NASA, alongside the National Science Foundation and a handful of other federal agencies. Going into the appropriations process, the president called for a 24 percent year over year reduction to NASA's total operating budget. As part of that plan, the White House wanted to reduce the Science Mission Directorate's funding by nearly half, a move that would have forced NASA to cancel 55 ongoing and planned missions, including efforts like OSIRIS-APEX. The bill effectively rejects President Trump's plan, reducing NASA's total operating budget by just 1.6 percent year over year to $24.4 billion. Per the new appropriations, NASA's science budget will stand at $7.25 billion, 1.1 percent less relative to fiscal 2024, while shuffling the remaining funds to focus on different priorities. For instance, the House and Senate allocated $874 million (+8.7 percent) for the agency's heliophysics work; planetary sciences, which oversees missions like New Horizons, was cut to $2.5 billion (-6.5 percent) compared to 2024. At the same time, NASA's STEM engagement office, which the president proposed eliminating, escaped unscathed with its funding maintained at parity."It's almost everything we had been asking for, and it's very encouraging to see a House and Senate run by the president's own party agreeing that we need to keep investing in things like NASA science," says Casey Drier, chief of policy at the Planetary Society, a nonprofit founded by Carl Sagan that advocates for the exploration and study of space. "It contains very clear and direct language that not only is this funding made available to these projects, but that it will be spent on the initiatives that Congress states."Lawmakers also rejected Trump's effort to scuttle the Space Launch System after its third flight. NASA's heavy-lift rocket is billions of dollars over budget, but remains as of now the only spacecraft ready to ferry astronauts to the Moon. Compared to the rest of NASA, the fate of the SLS was never really in doubt. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) secured funding for the rocket as part of Trump's Big Beautiful Bill. "I've been saying for a long time you should never underestimate the political coalition behind the SLS, and I think that was very much validated this year," says Drier. More importantly, it appears the Goddard Space Flight Center will be safe from further damage. Over the summer, the future of the facility, known for its work on projects like the James Webb Space Telescope, was put in jeopardy. By some estimates, the campus has lost a third of its staff due to workforce cuts, and dozens of buildings, including some 100 laboratories, have been shut down by management. One of the casualties was NASA's largest library, which houses irreplaceable documents chronicling the history of the space race. As part of a "consolidation" effort, many of those documents will be thrown out.Under the appropriations bill, the Senate has directed NASA to preserve all the technical and scientific world-class capabilities at Goddard. It has also instructed the agency to ensure employees of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies are able to continue their work with "minimal disruption." The New York-based office, one of America's leading climate labs, was sent into limbo last spring after the Trump administration moved to shut it down. The bill also provides a lifeline for NASA's to bring back samples of Martian dirt collected by the Perseverance rover. Congress has effectively cancelled the official program tied to that ambition, the Mars Sample Return (MSR), but has set aside $110 million for the agency to continue developing technologies for future science missions to the Red Planet. MSR advocates have argued the mission could lead to significant scientific discoveries, but Drier notes the program was "ripe for cancellation" after it became mired in mismanagement. "I worry MSR now has this stink of bloat, excess cost and threat of overruns that are really going to make it challenging to restart this without having a dramatically different approach," says Drier, adding that deciding what to do with mission will likely be top of mind for the agency's new administrator, Jared Isaacman. The 2026 budget leaves NASA with fewer resources. Even in areas where Congress allocated the same amount of funds as it did in 2024, the agency will need to do more with less due to inflation. Compared to the absolute blood bath that would have been Trump's proposed budget, a marginal funding cut is the best case scenario given the circumstances, but the circumstances remain less than ideal. "There will be another presidential budget request coming out in the next couple of months," Drier said. "They could do this all over again if they wanted to."In the immediate future, NASA and its employees are at least protected from the potential fallout of another impending government shutdown. Congress has until January 30 to fully fund the federal government, and as of earlier this week, it has yet to find a way forward on appropriations for agencies like the Department of Labor. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/science/space/senate-passes-minibus-bill-funding-nasa-rejecting-trumps-proposed-cuts-231605536.html?src=rss
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The US and Taiwan have signed an agreement that will see a multi-billion dollar investment into domestic development of semiconductors and related infrastructure. The US Department of Commerce announced that Taiwanese businesses will make an upfront investment of at least $250 billion into their US production capacity, while Taiwan's government will provide credit guarantees of at least another $250 billion in support of the semiconductor industry and supply chain in the US. In exchange, Taiwan will receive a better deal on tariffs. Reciprocal tariffs will be limited to 15 percent, compared with the previous 20 percent rate. Generic pharmaceuticals and their generic ingredients, aircraft components, and unavailable natural resources will be not be subjected to reciprocal tariffs under the arrangement. Taiwanese companies with US production will also see increased import amounts without being charged duties under the Section 232 framework. According to reports from CNBC, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSNC) is already in position to take advantage of the new trade agreement with further expansion in Arizona. The major Taiwanese chip manufacturer had previously committed to investing $100 billion in its US operations over four years. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told CNBC in an interview that the current US government wants to bring 40 percent of Taiwan's semiconductor supply chain stateside, continuing to use tariffs as an incentive. "If they dont build in America, the tariffs likely to be 100 percent, Lutnick said.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/a-250-billion-trade-deal-will-see-taiwan-bring-more-semiconductor-production-to-the-us-224326501.html?src=rss
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After testing the feature in a limited beta, Bluesky is making its "Live Now" badge for streamers available for everyone on the social network to try. Live Now is included as part of Bluesky's v1.114 update, alongside "cashtags," a separate type of hashtag for collecting conversations about publicly-traded companies.Bluesky first started testing its Live Now badge in May 2025 with a limited group of accounts, including the official NBA account. The feature lets Twitch streamers with Bluesky profiles append a Live Now badge to their profile picture that links directly to their livestream. Live Now badges are limited to Twitch links for now, but Bluesky says "support for other streaming platforms may follow" as it learns from the beta. Linking to other social platforms shouldn't be a radical concept, but since Bluesky's competitor X has tried to prevent users from posting links in the past, the company has made it a point of trying to do the opposite.Cashtags are a similar attempt to appeal to a certain type of veteran X user. Originally a feature of pre-Musk Twitter, cashtags work like a hashtag, marking posts in a way that makes them easy to find in a search or by tapping the cashtag itself. On Bluesky, by typing a dollar sign ($) and the stock abbreviation of a company (AAPL for Apple, for example), you can add a cashtag to your post that links it to other posts using the same cashtag. So far, the cultural makeup of Bluesky hasn't seemed as business-oriented as X, but the feature suggests Bluesky wants the option to be available for anyone who jumps ship.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/blueskys-live-now-badge-is-available-to-everyone-223335221.html?src=rss
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