gettyimages 2287590751

Russian attacks on Ukraine kill several; possible Russian missile crashes in Poland

Kyiv, Ukraine — A Russian ballistic missile and drone barrage across Ukraine overnight into Thursday killed at least eight civilians, including children, and wounded dozens of others, officials said. The blitz expanded Russia’s almost daily bombardment of Ukrainian cities as Moscow apparently looked to exploit Kyiv’s critical shortage of Western-supplied anti-ballistic missile defenses. NATO member…

Read More
gettyimages 2159465669

Airlines are banning humanoid robots from flights. Why?

More airlines are banning humanoid and pet-like robots from boarding flights or traveling in passengers’ checked luggage, citing potential safety concerns.  Although humanoid robots remain rare outside the laboratory and even the factory floor, numerous companies are developing the technology, with robot evangelists such as Elon Musk predicting that they will eventually become common.  Earlier…

Read More
ap26209492252450

2 firefighters die in Greece as crews in France fight massive blaze 4 times the size of Paris

Two firefighters died Wednesday while battling a blaze on the Greek island of Crete, officials said, while crews in southern France worked to extinguish a massive, uncontained wildfire that had spread to roughly four times the size of Paris. Across Europe, firefighters confronted a dangerous combination of high temperatures, drought and powerful winds, compromising containment…

Read More
072626 landing2

NASA astronaut, 2 cosmonauts return to Earth after eight-month stay International Space Station

Two Russian cosmonauts and a NASA astronaut closed out a 241-day stay aboard the International Space Station early Sunday with a fiery plunge back to Earth and an on-target touchdown on the broad steppe of Kazakhstan. Strapped into the Soyuz MS-28/74S ferry ship, commander Sergey Kud-Sverchkov, flight engineer Sergey Mikaev and NASA’s Chris Williams undocked…

Read More
gettyimages 2287060389

More than 300,000 displaced in France and Spain as exhausted firefighters battle wildfires

Fire crews in France and Spain continued to battle raging wildfires that have forced the evacuation of more than 300,000 people in the two countries. Authorities in France’s Gironde region, where the wine region city of Bordeaux is located, issued overnight evacuation orders for five more localities as shifting winds and arid conditions complicated the…

Read More
ap26206009691207

SpaceX’s giant Super Heavy-Starship rocket blasts off on key test flight

SpaceX launched its 13th Super Heavy-Starship rocket Friday, with the giant booster chalking up an on-target but “hard” splashdown off the Texas Gulf Coast while the Starship upper stage carried out a successful suborbital hop to the Indian Ocean. Powered by 33 methane-fueled Raptor engines, the 397-foot-tall two-stage rocket blasted off from SpaceX’s Starbase, Texas,…

Read More
ap26203696217474

National Guard deployed as flash floods inundate West Virginia, dropping 7 inches of rain

Torrential rains caused flash floods in West Virginia that inundated homes and businesses, washed out bridges and led to numerous water rescues. The state’s governor said some residents were unaccounted for as search operations continued Wednesday. Gov. Patrick Morrisey sent 500 National Guard members to the hardest-hit areas in the northern part of the state…

Read More
gettyimages 2284647101

Shipping insider says “nothing is going through” the Strait of Hormuz, despite U.S. insisting it’s open

London — The U.S. military’s Central Command repeated an assertion on Tuesday evening that has been made by the Trump administration many times over the last two weeks, insisting that “despite Iranian aggression, the Strait of Hormuz remains open for commercial vessel traffic.”  CENTCOM acknowledged in the same statement that Iran had launched more than 30…

Read More