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SpaceX prepared for the next test flight of its massive Starship prototype rocket Thursday, as scrutiny grows over founder Elon Musk’s influence on the US government’s space program.The world’s biggest and most powerful launch vehicle is set to blast off from SpaceX’s Starbase facility in Boca Chica, Texas, in a launch window that opens at 5:30 pm local time (2330 GMT).It will be Starship’s eighth orbital mission — all so far uncrewed — and the first since its dramatic mid-air explosion over the Caribbean during its last trial. Earlier attempts to carry out the test were called off on Monday and Wednesday.Standing 403 feet (123 meters) tall — about 100 feet taller than the Statue of Liberty. Starship is designed to eventually be fully reusable and is key to Musk’s vision of colonizing Mars. Meanwhile, NASA is awaiting a modified version of Starship as a lunar lander for its Artemis program, which aims to return astronauts to the Moon this decade.The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) grounded Starship after its flight on January 16 ended with the upper stage disintegrating in a fiery cascade over the Turks and Caicos Islands, prompting cleanup efforts for fallen debris.Last Friday, the FAA announced that Starship could proceed with its next flight before the agency finalizes its review of SpaceX’s “mishap investigation.”During Joe Biden’s presidency, Musk frequently accused the FAA of excessively scrutinizing SpaceX over safety and environmental concerns. Now, as President Donald Trump’s cost-cutter-in-chief, the world’s richest person faces allegations of wielding undue influence over regulatory agencies overseeing his companies.According to Bloomberg News, a SpaceX engineer went to the Federal Aviation Administration headquarters two weeks ago and told employees they risked losing their jobs if they did not start work on a program to deploy thousands of the company’s Starlink satellite terminals in support of the national airspace system.Telecoms giant Verizon currently has a contract to upgrade the FAA’s infrastructure but now risks losing it, Bloomberg added. SpaceX said in a post that “recent media reports about SpaceX and the FAA are false.”For the upcoming flight, SpaceX says it has introduced numerous upgrades to the upper-stage spaceship that enhance its reliability and performance.The mission, expected to last just over an hour, includes another attempt to catch the booster stage using the launch tower’s “chopstick” arms — a feat SpaceX has successfully executed twice, including in the last flight.Additionally, Starship will deploy Starlink simulators designed to mimic Starlink satellites, which will burn up upon atmospheric re-entry.Eventually, SpaceX aims to recover the upper stage as well, but for now, it is targeting splashdown in the Indian Ocean off the western coast of Australia, as in previous flights.

The US House of Representatives censured Texas Democrat Al Green on Thursday after he was thrown out of the chamber for repeatedly interrupting President Donald Trump’s address to Congress.Green, 77, stood up and waved his cane as he heckled the Republican leader during Tuesday’s speech, refusing to sit down despite being warned that he risked removal.Republican congressman Dan Newhouse — a moderate who voted to impeach Trump in 2021 — had introduced the resolution to subject Green to a formal reprimand in front of his colleagues.”Decorum and order are the institutional grounds for the way we do business in the United States Congress, and the sheer disregard for that standard during President Trump’s address by the gentleman from Texas is unacceptable,” Newhouse said in a statement.Trump told Fox News Digital on Thursday that Green was a “fool and a clown” that no one takes seriously. The president said the Texan “should be forced to pass an IQ test because he is a low IQ individual and we don’t need low IQ individuals in Congress.”Green’s disruption was just one part of a broader Democratic protest during the address, with lawmakers walking out, yelling at Trump and brandishing signs.The White House accused Democrats of being the “party of insanity and hate,” although it did not acknowledge the Republicans’ own past transgressions during addresses by Democratic presidents.There were few statements of unequivocal support for Green from his colleagues. Although the Democrats tried unsuccessfully to get the censure vote canceled, a handful voted for it when it came to the floor.For critics of the Democratic response to Trump’s first weeks in office, the episode demonstrated the party’s lack of discipline and a clear strategy to oppose his plans to massively shrink federal spending.Democratic Senator John Fetterman called Tuesday’s protests a “sad cavalcade of self owns and unhinged petulance.””It only makes Trump look more presidential and restrained. We’re becoming the metaphorical car alarms that nobody pays attention to — and it may not be the winning message,” he posted on X.Censure votes used to be rare, but have been used by both parties more frequently in recent years.The resolution itself — a formal reprimand by a lawmaker’s peers — is seen as the punishment, and does not entail any further denial of privileges.Green and some of his colleagues sang civil rights gospel anthem “We Shall Overcome” as House Speaker Mike Johnson read out the censure resolution.Before the vote, Green told reporters he was happy to “suffer the consequences” of his actions, which he said were to highlight Republican plans to cut health insurance programs and welfare.”I stood up for those who need Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security,” he posted on X.”Democrats will never abandon the fight to make sure every American has a safe, healthy, and financially secure life.”

Roy Ayers, the trailblazer of jazz, funk and neo-soul whose “Everybody Loves the Sunshine” proved a hugely popular hip-hop sample, has died. He was 84 years old.The artist’s family shared the news in a Facebook post, saying the vibraphonist, composer and producer died in New York on March 4 following a long illness.”He lived a beautiful 84 years and will be sorely missed,” read the post published late Wednesday.Ayers is considered a master of jazz vibraphone, and was also a leading force in introducing soul to jazz with electric instruments and rhythms drawing on R&B and rock.A rare jazz artist who found consistent commercial success, Ayers released nearly four dozen albums over the course of his career, frequently bouncing into the top albums chart.His 1976 track “Everybody Loves the Sunshine” has been sampled nearly 200 times by major artists including Dr. Dre, Tupac Shakur, Snoop Dogg and Mary J Blige. And the electric piano hook off “Love” featured in the 1990 dance smash “Groove Is in the Heart.”Born and raised in Los Angeles, Ayers grew up in a musical family with clear sights on making it his career.He has described receiving his first set of vibraphone mallets at age five from the famed vibraphonist and percussionist Lionel Hampton, whose music Ayers’s parents frequently played for him.He founded the band that would help make him a household name, Roy Ayers Ubiquity, in 1970.The eventual “Godfather of Neo-Soul” found remarkable success with the label Polydor, releasing 11 albums with them from 1970 to 1977.A true artist’s artist, his collaborations over the decades included Fela Kuti, Whitney Houston, Rick James, Erykah Badu, Alicia Keys, The Roots and Tyler, The Creator.”The cat who birthed us all in the ‘vibes only’ movement,” wrote famed Roots drummer Questlove on Instagram, calling Ayers’s music “life changing.””Thank You Roy Edward Ayers Jr for EVERYTHING you gave us. taught us. showed us. soothed us.”And former US presidential candidate Kamala Harris called Ayers “legendary.””I grew up listening to the legendary Roy Ayers,” the Democrat wrote Thursday on X, saying the artist was a family favorite in her household. “‘Everybody Loves the Sunshine’ is one of my favorite songs, and it has scored some of the most important moments in my life,” she added.”Our family sends our prayers to Roy’s loved ones and everyone who — like us — has been impacted by his music.”

The United States hinted Thursday at an expanded reprieve for Canada and Mexico from President Donald Trump’s steep tariffs, with a one-month pause for car imports potentially extended to all goods covered by a North American trade pact.Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told CNBC: “It’s likely that it will cover all USMCA compliant goods and services, so that which is part of President Trump’s deal with Canada and Mexico are likely to get an exemption from these tariffs.”He added that the reprieve would be for one month, a day after the White House gave automakers temporary relief too from the levies that hit everything from lumber to avocado imports.But after a month, Canadian and Mexican goods could still face reciprocal tariffs, Lutnick told CNBC, with Trump promising an announcement on April 2.Trump’s 25-percent tariffs on US imports from Canada and Mexico — with a lower rate for Canadian energy — kicked in Tuesday, sending global markets downward and straining ties between the neighbors.Ottawa swiftly announced retaliatory levies, while Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum similarly promised countermeasures.On Thursday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau warned that Ottawa and Washington would be in a trade war “for the foreseeable future,” saying his country would not back down until US tariffs were fully lifted.Since taking office in January, Trump has made a series of tariff threats on allies and adversaries alike, imposing levies on Canada, Mexico and China over illegal immigration and fentanyl concerns.Canada contributes less than one percent of fentanyl to the United States’ illicit supply, according to Canadian and US government data. But Trump has shrugged off these figures.- Record deficit -Trump has referred to tariffs as a way to raise government revenue and remedy trade imbalances and practices Washington deems unfair.This came as the US trade deficit surged to a new record in January according to government data Thursday, as imports spiked while tariff worries flared in the month of Trump’s inauguration.Trump returned to the White House with pledges to ease cost-of-living pressures for voters, but on the campaign trail he also raised the possibility of sweeping levies across US imports.The overall trade gap of the world’s biggest economy ballooned 34 percent to $131.4 billion, on the back of a 10 percent jump in imports for the month, said the Commerce Department.This was the widest deficit for a month on record, dating back to 1992, and the expansion was more than analysts anticipated.Trump said on social media that the US trade gap was massive, adding: “I will change that!!!”The latest figures came after the US economy saw its goods deficit hit a fresh record too for the full year of 2024 — at $1.2 trillion.In January, imports came in at $401.2 billion, some $36.6 billion more than the level in December, Commerce Department data showed.US exports rose $3.3 billion between December and January to $269.8 billion.On Thursday, the International Monetary Fund warned Trump’s tariffs could have “a significant adverse economic impact” on Canada and Mexico.- Tariff jitters -Analysts say the US deficit was likely bolstered by gold imports.But “stripping out this impact, all other imports rose 5.5 percent, indicating front-loading of shipments was in full swing,” said Oxford Economics senior economist Matthew Martin.This refers to a tendency for businesses to try and get ahead of additional costs from potential tariffs, and possible supply chain disruptions.Economists at Pantheon Macroeconomics said of the surge in gold imports: “Tariff threats are reportedly prompting a mass repatriation of gold holdings to the US from elsewhere, mostly via Switzerland.”US deficits with other economies were a key focus of Trump’s first administration, and at the time he waged a bruising tariffs war with China in particular.On the campaign trail ahead of November’s election, Trump vowed reciprocal tariffs on nations that taxed US-made products, dubbing this the “Trump Reciprocal Trade Act.”Since returning to office, the Republican has launched plans for “reciprocal tariffs” tailored to each US trading partner, to tackle trade practices deemed unfair by Washington, while also threatening tariffs on other imports ranging from semiconductors to autos.

A South Carolina man convicted of murdering his ex-girlfriend’s parents is to be put to death by firing squad on Friday in the first such execution in the United States in 15 years.Brad Sigmon, 67, is to be executed at a prison in Columbia, the South Carolina capital, for the 2001 murders of David and Gladys Larke, who were beaten to death with a baseball bat.Sigmon, who confessed to the murders and admitted his guilt at trial, had a choice between lethal injection, firing squad or the electric chair as his manner of execution.Gerald “Bo” King, one of his lawyers, said Sigmon had chosen the firing squad after being placed in an “impossible” position, forced to make an “abjectly cruel” decision about how he would die.”Unless he elected lethal injection or the firing squad, he would die in South Carolina’s ancient electric chair, which would burn and cook him alive,” King said.”But the alternative is just as monstrous,” he said. “If he chose lethal injection, he risked the prolonged death suffered by all three of the men South Carolina has executed since September.”The last US firing squad execution in the United States was in Utah in 2010. Two others have also been carried out by firing squad in the western state — in 1996 and in 1977.The 1977 execution of convicted murderer Gary Gilmore was the basis for the 1979 book “The Executioner’s Song” by Norman Mailer.The vast majority of executions in the United States have been done by lethal injection since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976.Alabama has carried out four executions recently using nitrogen gas, which has been denounced by UN experts as cruel and inhumane. The execution is performed by pumping nitrogen gas into a facemask, causing the prisoner to suffocate.Three other US states — Idaho, Mississippi and Oklahoma — have joined South Carolina and Utah in authorizing the use of firing squads.- Death chamber renovated -According to the South Carolina Department of Corrections (SCDC), the death chamber at the prison where Sigmon is to be executed has been renovated to accommodate a firing squad.Bullet-resistant glass has been placed between the witness room and execution chamber.Sigmon will be restrained in a metal chair with a hood over his head 15 feet (five meters) away from a wall with a rectangular opening.A three-person firing squad of SCDC volunteers will shoot through the opening.All three rifles will have live ammunition.An “aim point” will be placed above Sigmon’s heart by a member of the execution team.There have been five executions in the United States this year and there were 25 last year.The death penalty has been abolished in 23 of the 50 US states, while three others — California, Oregon and Pennsylvania — have moratoriums in place.Three states — Arizona, Ohio and Tennessee — that had paused executions have recently announced plans to resume them.President Donald Trump is a proponent of capital punishment and on his first day in the White House he called for an expansion of its use “for the vilest crimes.”

A drill for ice, a 4G network test, three rovers, and a hopping drone: a US company is hours away from its second lunar landing attempt on Thursday, aiming to advance technologies for future human missions.Houston-based Intuitive Machines, which made history last year as the first private firm to land on the Moon, is targeting a 12:32 pm ET (1732 GMT) touchdown at Mons Mouton, a point nearer the lunar south pole than any robot has ever ventured.The 15.6-foot (4.8-meter), hexagonal Athena lander — about the height of a giraffe — began its descent maneuver earlier, with a webcast set to begin an hour before landing.Intuitive Machines’ milestone landing in February 2024 was partly marred by the lander tipping onto its side — an outcome the company hopes to avoid repeating. For the final and trickiest phase, known as terminal descent, Athena will be relying on an Inertial Measurement Unit that senses acceleration, as its cameras and lasers are obscured by lunar dust kicked up by its engines.”Terminal descent is like walking towards a door and closing your eyes the last three feet. You know you’re close enough, but your inner ear must lead you through the door,” the company said.Pressure is high after Texas-based Firefly Aerospace successfully put its Blue Ghost lander on the Moon on Sunday. Both missions are part of NASA’s $2.6-billion CLPS program, designed to partner with private companies to reduce costs and support Artemis — the effort to return astronauts to the Moon and, eventually, Mars.- A hopper named Grace -Athena is targeting highland terrain about 100 miles (160 kilometers) from the Moon’s south pole, where it will deploy three rovers and a unique hopping drone named Grace, after late computer science pioneer Grace Hopper.One of Grace’s boldest objectives is a hop into a permanently shadowed crater, a place where sunlight has never shone — a first for humanity.While NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter proved flight is possible on Mars, the Moon’s lack of atmosphere makes traditional flying impossible, positioning hoppers like Grace as a key technology for future exploration.MAPP, the largest of Athena’s rovers and roughly the size of a beagle, will assist in testing a Nokia Bell Labs 4G cellular network linking the lander, itself, and Grace — technology designed to one day integrate into astronaut spacesuits.Yaoki, a more compact rover from Japanese company Dymon, is designed to survive drops in any orientation, making it highly adaptable.Meanwhile, the tiny AstroAnt rover, equipped with magnetic wheels, will cling to MAPP and use its sensors to measure temperature variations on the larger robot.Also aboard Athena is PRIME-1, a NASA instrument carrying a drill to search for ice and other chemicals beneath the lunar surface, paired with a spectrometer to analyze its findings.- Sticking the landing -Before any experiments can begin, Intuitive Machines must stick the landing — a challenge made harder by the Moon’s lack of atmosphere, which rules out parachutes and forces spacecraft to rely on precise thrusts and navigation over hazardous terrain.Until Intuitive Machines’ first mission, only national space agencies had achieved the feat, with NASA’s last landing dating back to Apollo 17 in 1972.The company’s first lander, Odysseus, came in too fast, caught a foot on the surface and toppled over, cutting the mission short when its solar panels could not generate enough power.This time, the company has made critical upgrades, including better cabling for the laser altimeter, which provides altitude and velocity readings to ensure a safe touchdown.Athena launched last Wednesday aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, which also carried NASA’s Lunar Trailblazer probe — but not everything has gone smoothly.Ground controllers are struggling to re-establish contact with the small satellite, designed to map the Moon’s water distribution.These missions come at a delicate time for NASA, amid speculation that the agency may scale back or even cancel the crewed Moon missions in favor of prioritizing Mars — a goal championed by President Donald Trump and his advisor Elon Musk.

Global sea ice cover reached a historic low in February, Europe’s climate monitor said Thursday, with temperatures spiking up to 11C above average near the North Pole as the world continued its persistent heat streak.Copernicus Climate Change Service said last month was the third hottest February, with planet-heating greenhouse gas emissions stoking global temperatures.That helped push combined Antarctic and Arctic sea ice cover — ocean water that freezes and floats on the surface — to a record minimum extent of 16.04 million square kilometres on February 7, Copernicus said.”February 2025 continues the streak of record or near-record temperatures observed throughout the last two years,” said Samantha Burgess of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, which runs the Copernicus climate monitor.”One of the consequences of a warmer world is melting sea ice, and the record or near-record low sea ice cover at both poles has pushed global sea ice cover to an all-time minimum.”Decreased ice cover has serious impacts over time on weather, people and ecosystems — not just within the region, but globally.When highly reflective snow and ice give way to dark blue ocean, the same amount of the sun’s energy that was bounced back into space is absorbed by water instead, accelerating the pace of global warming.Antarctic sea ice, which largely drives the global figure at this time of year, was 26 percent below average across February, Copernicus said.It said the region may have hit its annual summer minimum towards the end of the month, adding that if confirmed in March this would be the second-lowest minimum in the satellite record.The Arctic, where ice cover normally grows to an annual winter maximum in March, has seen record monthly lows since December, with February seeing ice cover eight percent below average for the month.”The current record low global sea ice extent revealed by the Copernicus analysis is of serious concern as it reflects major changes in both the Arctic and Antarctic,” said Simon Josey, Professor of Oceanography at the UK’s National Oceanography Centre.He added that warm ocean and atmospheric temperatures “may lead to an extensive failure of the ice to regrow” in the Antarctic during the southern hemisphere winter.- Heat streak -Globally, February was 1.59 degrees Celsius hotter than pre-industrial times, Copernicus said, adding that the December to February period was the second warmest on record.While temperatures were below average last month over parts of North America, Eastern Europe and across large areas of eastern Asia, it was hotter than average over northern Chile and Argentina, western Australia and the southwestern United States and Mexico.Temperatures were particularly elevated north of the Arctic Circle, Copernicus added, with average temperatures of 4C above the 1991–2020 average for the month, and one area near the North Pole hitting 11C above average.Copernicus said a lack of historical data from polar regions makes it difficult to give precise warming estimates compared to the pre-industrial period.Oceans, a vital climate regulator and carbon sink, store 90 percent of the excess heat trapped by humanity’s release of greenhouse gases.Sea surface temperatures have been exceptionally warm over 2023 and 2024, and Copernicus said readings in February were the second highest on record for the month.Climate scientists had expected the exceptional heat spell across the world to subside after a warming El Nino event peaked in January 2024 and conditions gradually shifted to a cooling La Nina phase.But the heat has lingered at record or near-record levels ever since, sparking debate among scientists.A single year above the Paris Agreement limit of 1.5C warming from pre-industrial levels does not mark a breach of the climate deal, but with record-breaking temperatures last year scientists warn that target is rapidly slipping out of reach.In the 20 months since mid-2023, only July of last year dipped below 1.5C, Copernicus said.The EU monitor uses billions of measurements from satellites, ships, aircraft and weather stations to aid its climate calculations.Its records go back to 1940, but other sources of climate data — such as ice cores, tree rings and coral skeletons — allow scientists to expand their conclusions using evidence from much further in the past.Scientists say the current period is likely the warmest the Earth has been for the last 125,000 years.

US prosecutors gave a graphic account Wednesday of the torture and murder of a transgender man whose case has highlighted the growing dangers faced by the trans community.Sam Nordquist was abducted, beaten and sexually assaulted for weeks before his body was hidden, prosecutors said, announcing seven adults had been indicted for the Black 24-year-old’s murder. Nordquist travelled from Minnesota to New York to meet an online contact who was among those indicted Wednesday.Nordquist’s family had not heard from him since January and the last time he was seen was in early February.The seven suspects had previously been indicted for lesser crimes, with the charge of first degree murder — the state’s most serious and carrying possible life imprisonment without parole — added Wednesday.Two children were also allegedly involved in the beating of Nordquist, who was brutalized in a motel in Canandaigua, located in upstate New York.”Sam was beaten, assaulted, sexually abused, starved, held captive, and we cannot make sense of that,” said Ontario County Assistant District Attorney Kelly Wolford at a briefing.Wolford said hate crime charges had not been brought because “we cannot put that on his gender, and we cannot put that on his race.””Sam was confined. He was forced to kneel and stand against a wall. He was physically assaulted,” Wolford added as she recounted the two children were believed to have been involved in Nordquist’s beating.”We have a seven-year-old and a 12-year-old who are also victims. They may have been forced to participate, but their lives are forever changed by what they saw,” she said. The seven adult suspects are alleged to have starved Nordquist, fed him feces, and forced him to drink urine.”They forced him to obey their commands, treating him like a dog,” said Wolford.The case has rocked the trans community and outraged activists.”We refuse to let Sam’s story fade into silence. We demand accountability, we demand justice, and we demand a world where transgender people are safe, respected, and able to live freely,” Sarah Kate Ellis, the president of the GLAAD LGBTQ campaign group, said in a statement last month.GLAAD reported that there had been more than 800 anti-trans incidents in the US since June 2022.Trump campaigned on a promise to ban transgender people from the military, outlaw federal funding for trans healthcare and to remove trans people from sports teams.Since coming to office, he has passed a slew of executive orders targeting the community, including purging mentions of transgender people from government websites and slashing LGBTQ programs.On his first day back in power, Trump signed an executive order recognizing only “two genders, male and female.”

The smash hit musical “Hamilton” has cancelled a planned run at the Kennedy Center because President Donald Trump has destroyed the political neutrality of the US capital’s premier cultural venue since taking over as its chairman, the play’s producer said Wednesday.The cancellation was a sharply worded rebuke to Trump’s takeover, part of his blitz of policy changes that are upending the city and the country as he attacks people, causes and policies that he describes as being too liberal.In a statement on X, “Hamilton” producer Jeffrey Seller said the stately white marble complex overlooking the Potomac River in Washington was founded as a place where Americans of all political persuasions could come together to enjoy the arts.”However, in recent weeks we have sadly seen decades of Kennedy Center neutrality be destroyed,” Seller wrote.”The recent purge by the Trump administration of both professional staff and performing arts events at or originally produced by the Kennedy Center flies in the face of everything this national cultural treasure represents,” he added.The third engagement at the Kennedy Center of “Hamilton,” a fabulously popular rap musical about the birth of the United States and its first treasury secretary, originally scheduled for March 3 through April 26 of next year, is now cancelled.The play was to have been performed as part of celebrations of the 250th anniversary of the US Declaration of Independence.The high-profile cancellation is the latest in a series of such exits since Trump took over as Kennedy Center chairman last month, ousting Democrats from the center’s board and replacing the long-serving president.The new board is packed with Trump loyalists and the new president is Richard Grenell, the outspoken ambassador to Germany during Trump’s first term in office who now serves as his special envoy.”So we took over the Kennedy Center. We didn’t like what they were showing and various other things,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office last month, The Washington Post reported.”I’m going to be chairman of it, and we’re going to make sure that it’s good and it’s not going to be woke.”A handful of artists have already cancelled plans to perform at the Kennedy Center since the Trump takeover, including the musician Rhiannon Giddens and actress Issa Rae.”This latest action by Trump means it’s not the Kennedy Center as we knew it,” the creator of “Hamilton,” Lin-Manuel Miranda, said in a joint New York Times interview with Seller on Wednesday.”The Kennedy Center was not created in this spirit, and we’re not going to be a part of it while it is the Trump Kennedy Center.”In a statement on X, Grenell called the cancellation “a publicity stunt that will backfire.””The Arts are for everyone — not just for the people who Lin likes and agrees with,” Grenell wrote.