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submitted 9 hours ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

Ex-air force captain Ed Dwight, passed over by Nasa in 1961, now oldest person to reach edge of space with Jeff Bezo’s space firm

Sixty-one years since he was selected but ultimately passed over to become the first Black astronaut, Ed Dwight finally reached space in a Blue Origin rocket – and set a different record.

At 10.37am on Sunday, Jeff Bezos’s space company launched its NS-25 mission from west Texas, marking Blue Origin’s first crewed spaceflight since 2022 when its New Shepard rocket was grounded due to a mid-flight failure.

On board were six crew members, including Dwight, a retired US air force captain who at 90 years old now becomes the oldest person to reach the edge of space.

In 1961, Dwight was chosen by President John F Kennedy to train as an astronaut at the Aerospace Research Pilot School, but was ultimately not selected for the Nasa Astronaut Corps.

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submitted 10 hours ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
  • Ukrainian drones hit Novorossiysk port, causing a fire and power outages, reports say.
  • The attack follows heightened defenses at the port after previous Ukrainian strikes on Crimea.
  • Novorossiysk is vital for Russia's oil exports and naval operations in the Black Sea.

The Russian port of Novorossiysk, which has become an important base for the Black Sea Fleet after repeated attacks on its traditional base in Crimea, has been targeted by Ukrainian drones.

This attacks follows previous reports by the UK Ministry of Defence indicating that Russia has been bolstering defenses at the Novorossiysk port to protect its Black Sea Fleet from potential Ukrainian attacks.

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submitted 11 hours ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

Severe flooding caused by heavy rainfall has inundated Voeren and Liège in Belgium, as well as parts of France and Germany.

The municipality of Voeren in Limburg has been severely impacted by heavy rainfall, causing extensive flooding in the area. Streets are submerged, houses inundated, and the local disaster plan has been enacted to manage the emergency. 

"This is worse than in 2021," stated Mayor Joris Gaens, referring to the devastating floods that hit Voeren and the province of Liège three years ago. Emergency shelters have been set up for those affected.

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submitted 15 hours ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

Iranian police have arrested more than 260 people, including three European citizens, on suspicion of spreading satanism, the state-run IRNA news agency reported Friday.

The report said the suspects were arrested on Thursday night in Shahryar County, west of the capital of Tehran, for “spreading the culture of satanism and nudity.” It did not elaborate.

It was not clear how such a large number of arrests were made in one night — if the suspects were in one location, at some gathering or party, or not.

Gatherings where unrelated men and women are seen together are illegal in Iran and considered a sin under Islamic law.

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submitted 16 hours ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

China and Cambodia will deploy their ships near the Gulf of Thailand for the naval section of their biggest ever "Golden Dragon" military drills.

Two Chinese warships docked at a commercial port in Cambodia on Sunday as the two countries stage joint military drills.

The two warships — Jingangshan amphibious warfare ship and Qijiguang training ship — arrived at Cambodia's Sihanoukville port. The commercial port is north of the Ream naval base, where two other Chinese corvettes have been docked for the last five months.

On Thursday, China and Cambodia initiated a 15-day-long military drill involving 760 Chinese military personnel along with around 1,300 Cambodians and 11 Cambodian vessels. The naval portion of the exercises is set be held near the Gulf of Thailand next week.

The annual maneuvers, known as Golden Dragon exercises, were first held in December 2016. This year's event is the second after a three-year hiatus over the COVID-19 pandemic, and the largest to date.

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submitted 16 hours ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

A helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi suffered a “hard landing” on Sunday, Iranian state media reported, without immediately elaborating. 

Raisi was traveling in Iran’s East Azerbaijan province. State TV said the incident happened near Jolfa, a city on the border with the nation of Azerbaijan, some 600 kilometers (375 miles) northwest of the Iranian capital, Tehran.

Traveling with Raisi were Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, the governor of Iran’s East Azerbaijan province and other officials, the state-run IRNA news agency reported. One local government official used the word “crash” to describe the incident, but he acknowledged to an Iranian newspaper that he had yet to reach the site himself. 

Neither IRNA nor state TV offered any information on Raisi’s condition.

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submitted 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

A helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi suffered a “hard landing” on Sunday, Iranian state television reported, without immediately elaborating.

Raisi was traveling in Iran’s East Azerbaijan province. State TV said the incident happened near Jolfa, a city on the border with the nation of Azerbaijan, some 600 kilometers (375 miles) northwest of the Iranian capital, Tehran.

Rescuers were attempting to reach the site, state TV said, but had been hampered by poor weather condition in the area. There had been heavy rain reported with some wind.

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submitted 17 hours ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

When consulted by EL PAÍS, activists, members of the Federal Police and local journalists confirm that it’s impossible to enter or leave Frontera Comalapa or Chicomuselo

When consulted by EL PAÍS, activists, members of the Federal Police and local journalists confirm that it’s impossible to enter or leave Frontera Comalapa or Chicomuselo, two municipalities in the state of Chiapas. They also point out that moving around has become extremely difficult in recent months, as violence and clashes in both municipalities have worsened. Last Monday, a confrontation in the area between the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) left 11 people dead.

“At least since 2021, the residents of these towns [have been kept] as hostages. The people we’ve been able to speak with tell us that these criminal structures control their electricity, telecommunications and even their food, because by having key access roads closed, businesses are running out of supplies,” explains Dora Roblero, director of the Fray Bartolomé de las Casas Human Rights Center, known in the region as Frayba. “The Aurrera supermarket in Frontera Comalapa closed because it could no longer get access to food. Therefore, the population has to look for another place to find groceries. [This search for food] has to be done when the roads are open… and this only happens when the criminal groups decide to do so,” she adds.

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submitted 19 hours ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

Governing Georgian Dream party can still force the controversial legislation through parliament.

The Georgian government’s plans to brand Western-funded NGOs, media outlets and campaign groups as “foreign agents” were rejected by the country’s president on Saturday, but the ruling party vows to pass them into law despite widespread public protests and international outcry.

Speaking at a press conference in the capital of Tbilisi on Saturday, President Salome Zurabishvili confirmed she had vetoed the bill — which was awaiting her signature after being passed in parliament earlier this week. Critics say the proposals, which would apply to organizations that receive more than 20 percent of their funding from abroad, are similar to ones used by the Kremlin to quash dissent in Russia.

“This law is, in its essence, in its spirit, a Russian law, which contradicts our constitution and all European standards, and is an obstacle to the European path,” Zurabishvili said.

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submitted 19 hours ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

In Ireland's capital, Dublin, tent cities set up by migrants who lack temporary protected status are repeatedly cleared. The situation has been aggravated by Ireland's housing crisis and anti-migrant laws in Britain.

The center of Dublin glitters with architectural showpieces, the offices of global corporations. But there are increasingly tents at the base of the glass facades. Some of these belong to people excluded from housing, a scarcity across Ireland and simply unaffordable for many people in the booming capital. The housing crisis is the dominant topic in Ireland right now. When he took office as taoiseach, or Ireland's head of government, in April, Simon Harris promised to provide 250,000 new homes by the end of the decade.

The second group of people sleeping in tents constitute the second-hottest topic in the Irish republic. More and more migrants are arriving here, to this island in northwestern Europe, and its capacity to accommodate them is at its limits — not least because of the housing crisis. The situation has been aggravated by Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Since the beginning of the war, 100,000 Ukrainian refugees have registered in Ireland. An EU-wide agreement means they do not have to apply for asylum first.

Ireland's government openly admits that it is unable to provide all asylum-seekers with accommodation while their applications are processed. According to the government, as of May 14, 1,780 male applicants were as yet unhoused.

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submitted 20 hours ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

Alice Stewart, a veteran political adviser and CNN political commentator who worked on several GOP presidential campaigns, has died. She was 58.

Law enforcement officials told CNN that Stewart’s body was found outdoors in the Belle View neighborhood in northern Virginia early Saturday morning. No foul play is suspected, and officers believe a medical emergency occurred.

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submitted 20 hours ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

Ex-New York mayor last of 17 defendants to be served in plot to overturn Donald Trump’s election loss to Joe Biden in 2020

Former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani  is the last of 17 defendants to be served an indictment in Arizona’s fake-elector case for his role in an attempt to overturn former president Donald Trump’s loss to Joe Biden in the 2020 election, the Arizona attorney general said.

Kris Mayes posted the news regarding the Trump-aligned lawyer on her X account late Friday.

“The final defendant was served moments ago. @RudyGiuliani nobody is above the law,” Mayes wrote.

The attorney general’s spokesperson, Richie Taylor, said in an email to the Associated Press on Saturday that Giuliani faces the same charges as the other defendants, including conspiracy, fraud and forgery charges.

[-] [email protected] 131 points 8 months ago

The air-defence system fired its rounds to shoot the drones down, thus revealing its location, Rybar reported. Ukraine waited until it had fired all its ammo, then targeted it with cruise missiles.

[-] [email protected] 130 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Here’s some good news about that with California making its own insulins:

The state-label insulins will cost no more than $30 per 10 milliliter vial, and no more than $55 for a box of five pre-filled pen cartridges — for both insured and uninsured patients. The medicines will be available nationwide, the governor's office said.

https://www.npr.org/2023/03/19/1164572757/california-contract-cheap-insulin-calrx

[-] [email protected] 123 points 9 months ago

Ads for brands including Adobe, Gilead Sciences, the University of Maryland’s football team, New York University Langone Hospital and NCTA-The Internet and Television Association were run alongside tweets from the account that had garnered hundreds of thousands of views, CNN observed.

Spokespeople for NCTA and pharmaceutical company Gilead said that they immediately paused their ad spending on X after CNN flagged their ads on the pro-Nazi account.

[-] [email protected] 155 points 9 months ago

“It’s becoming all too commonplace to see everyday citizens performing necessary functions for our democracy being targeted with violent threats by Trump-supporting extremists," Jones said. "The lack of political leadership on the right to denounce these threats — which serve to inspire real-world political violence— is shameful.

And there’s also this:

Yesterday — after Trump posted on his social media website that authorities were going "after those that fought to find the RIGGERS!" — Advance Democracy noted that Trump supporters were "using the term ‘rigger’ in lieu of a racial slur" in posts online.

[-] [email protected] 161 points 9 months ago

"Liberal media has distorted my record since the beginning of my judicial career, and I refuse to let false accusations go unchecked," Bradley told the Journal Sentinel in an email. "On my wikipedia page, I added excerpts from actual opinions and removed dishonest information about my background."

What, then, was getting under her skin?

It's clear Bradley really, really disliked the section in her Wikipedia page dealing with a Republican challenge to the stay-at-home order issued by the administration of Democratic Gov. Tony Evers in response the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to her Wikipedia page, in May 2020, Bradley "compared the state's stay-at-home orders to the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II," a case known as Korematsu v. the United States.

[-] [email protected] 147 points 9 months ago

According to ABC 13 Eyewitness News in Houston, things started when school trustee Melissa Dungan declared that she had spoken to parents who were upset about "displays of personal ideologies in classrooms." When pressed for an example, according to the news report, "Dungan referred to a first grade student whose parent claimed they were so upset by a poster showing hands of people of different races, that they transferred classrooms." … Some other members of the school board did, in fact, argue that there was nothing objectionable about such a poster. But Dungan was backed up by another trustee, Misty Odenweller, who insisted that the depiction of uh, race-mixing was in some way a "violation of the law." The two women are part of "Mama Bears Rising," a secretive far-right group fueling the book-banning mania in Conroe and the surrounding area. At least 59 books have been banned due to their efforts.

WTF

[-] [email protected] 143 points 9 months ago

The search was so secret that Twitter was barred from telling Trump the search warrant had been obtained for his account, and Twitter was fined $350,000 because it delayed producing the records sought under the search warrant.

[-] [email protected] 219 points 9 months ago

“They attempt to legitimize these unnecessary debates with a proposal that most recently came in of a politically motivated roundtable,” Harris said in her afternoon speech at the 20th Women’s Missionary Society of the African Methodist Episcopal Church Quadrennial Convention in Orlando. “Well, I’m here in Florida, and I will tell you there is no roundtable, no lecture, no invitation we will accept to debate an undeniable fact. There were no redeeming qualities of slavery.”

Makes sense to me.

[-] [email protected] 159 points 9 months ago

Last week Country Music Television, which initially aired the video, pulled it from rotation. But after Aldean defended the music video by stating that "there isn’t a single video clip that isn’t real news footage," Stark said it was easy to prove him wrong

In a TikTok video that's gotten at least 1.5 million views, Stark found that two of the clips in the video came from stock footage. One showed a woman flipping off police at at labor day event in Germany and another was a commercial stock clip of a molotov cocktail.

Lying about it and then getting caught.

Stark shared screenshots with NBC News of hateful messages she's received since posting her videos about Aldean's song, which included racist slurs, fatphobic remarks and death threats.

Just bizarre.

[-] [email protected] 232 points 10 months ago

Heartbreaking

One of the plaintiffs in the suit, Samantha Casiano, vomited on the stand while discussing her baby's fatal birth defect, which she said also put her life at risk.

Casiano said she learned at 20 weeks' gestation that her baby had anencephaly, a serious condition that meant the infant was missing parts of her brain and skull. Casiano said her obstetrician told her the baby would not survive after birth and gave her information about funeral homes.

Casiano read aloud a doctor’s note that diagnosed her pregnancy as high risk, then began to sob and ultimately threw up, prompting the judge to call a recess.

[-] [email protected] 153 points 10 months ago

This is why they're mad

President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, which passed in 2022 by a narrow party-line vote, empowered Medicare to negotiate drug prices for the first time in the program’s six-decade history.

The provision aims to make drugs more affordable for older Americans but will likely reduce pharmaceutical industry profits.

[-] [email protected] 125 points 10 months ago

Our billionaires are not okay. The most obvious example, of course, is Musk, who is having a midlife crisis so unhinged that it would be upsetting if he weren't such a terrible person. He purchased Twitter for $44 billion last year, out of nothing more than a fit of pique over the company's efforts to keep the social media app from being too overrun by Nazis. As the company swirls down the toilet under his watch, his public behavior gets ever more erratic. The threat from Threads, a Meta-owned competitor that launched earlier this month, caused Musk, age 52, to react with a level of immaturity that would be cause for alarm in a junior high school kid. He challenged Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to a "cage match." And then again to a "literal dick measuring contest." He keeps throwing schoolboy insults at Zuckerberg.

Kinda hilarious and sad at the same time.

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