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SpaceX founder Elon Musk said Saturday its massive Starship rocket would leave for Mars at the end of 2026 with Tesla humanoid robot Optimus onboard, adding that human landings could follow “as soon as 2029.””Starship departs for Mars at the end of next year, carrying Optimus. If those landings go well, then human landings may start as soon as 2029, although 2031 is more likely,” Musk said on his X social network. Musk, who is also the Tesla CEO, brought out the company’s Optimus robots at an event last year. He said the dancing robots would one day be able to do menial tasks, as well as offer friendship, and expected them to retail for $20,000 to $30,000.Starship — the world’s largest and most powerful rocket — is key to Musk’s long-term vision of colonizing Mars. Standing 403 feet (123 meters) tall — about 100 feet taller than the Statue of Liberty — Starship is designed to eventually be fully reusable.NASA is also awaiting a modified version of Starship as a lunar lander for its Artemis program, which aims to return astronauts to the Moon this decade.But before SpaceX can carry out those missions, it must prove the vehicle is reliable, safe for crew, and capable of complex in-orbit refueling — critical for deep space missions.- Setback -SpaceX faced a setback this month when its latest test flight of the Starship prototype ended in a fiery explosion, even as the booster was successfully caught in its orbital test.It was a near replay of the previous attempt. Minutes after liftoff and booster separation, a live video feed showed the upper stage tumbling uncontrollably before the signal abruptly cut.Dramatic footage circulating online showed red-hot debris raining down over the Bahamas.It marked its eighth uncrewed orbital test.The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said SpaceX will be required to conduct an investigation before it can fly again.Despite the setback, SpaceX’s “fail fast, learn fast” approach has helped it become the world’s dominant launch services provider.But Musk’s status as one of President Donald Trump’s closest advisors, and his influence over federal regulators, are raising concerns about potential conflicts of interest.During Joe Biden’s presidency, Musk frequently clashed with the FAA, accusing it of over-regulating SpaceX over safety and environmental concerns.Trump vowed in his inauguration speech in January “to plant the Stars and Stripes on the planet Mars.”

The US decision to expel South Africa’s ambassador was “regrettable,” the office of the South African president said Saturday, after Washington’s top diplomat accused the envoy of hating America and President Donald Trump.Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Friday that South Africa’s ambassador, Ebrahim Rasool, was “no longer welcome” in the United States.Rasool is “a race-baiting politician who hates America and hates @POTUS,” Rubio posted on X, referring to Trump by his White House X account handle.”We have nothing to discuss with him and so he is considered PERSONA NON GRATA.”South Africa’s presidency said in a statement it had “noted the regrettable expulsion” and urged “all relevant and impacted stakeholders to maintain the established diplomatic decorum in their engagement with the matter.””South Africa remains committed to building a mutually beneficial relationship with the United States of America,” the presidency said.The expulsion of the ambassador — a very rare move by the United States — is the latest development in rising tensions between Washington and Pretoria.Trump in February froze US aid to South Africa, citing a law in the country that he alleges allows land to be seized from white farmers.- Rising tensions -Last week, Trump further fueled tensions, saying South Africa’s farmers were welcome to settle in the United States after repeating his accusations that the government was “confiscating” land from white people.Trump posted on his Truth Social platform that “any Farmer (with family!) from South Africa, seeking to flee that country for reasons of safety, will be invited into the United States of America with a rapid pathway to Citizenship.”One of Trump’s closest allies is South African-born billionaire Elon Musk, who has accused South African President Cyril Ramaphosa’s government of having “openly racist ownership laws.”Land ownership is a contentious issue in South Africa, with most farmland still owned by white people three decades after the end of apartheid and the government under pressure to implement reforms.During a G20 event in South Africa last month, Ramaphosa said he had a “wonderful” call with Trump soon after the US leader took office in January.But relations later “seemed to go a little bit off the rails,” he said.In his X post, Rubio linked to an article from the conservative news outlet Breitbart, which addressed Rasool’s remarks via livestream to a foreign policy seminar on Friday.”He said that white supremacism was motivating Trump’s ‘disrespect’ for the ‘current hegemonic order’ of the world,” Breitbart reported, adding that Rasool noted that Trump’s Make America Great Again movement “was a white supremacist response to growing demographic diversity in the United States.”Rasool, an anti-apartheid campaigner in his youth, has expressed anger toward the Israeli government for its war in Gaza. In February in an interview with news site Zeteo, he said what South Africans experienced during apartheid rule “is on steroids in Palestine.”

Facebook parent company Meta is seeking to silence a former employee who has made scandalous allegations in a new tell-all book, obtaining a ruling to temporarily bar her from promoting the memoir or bad-mouthing the tech giant.In “Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed and Lost Idealism,” released on Tuesday, Sarah Wynn-Williams recounts working at the tech titan from 2011 to 2017.Her book includes claims of sexual harassment by longtime company executive Joel Kaplan, a prominent Republican and ally of President Donald Trump who took over as head of Meta’s international affairs team early this year.She also wrote of Meta, then known as Facebook, exploring the possibility of breaking into the lucrative China market by appeasing government censors there.”The suggestion was that as part of the negotiations for the company to enter into China, the data of users in Hong Kong could be put in play,” Wynn-Williams said in an interview with NPR.An idea was to flag content in Hong Kong or Taiwan that went “viral” and refer it to a censorship body for review, according to Wynn-Williams.Meta quickly took the matter to arbitration, contending the book violates a non-disparagement contract signed by Wynn-Williams when she worked with the company’s global affairs team.An arbitration court this week granted Meta’s request to bar Wynn-Williams from promoting the book or making derogatory statements about the companyShe also must retract previous critical comments about Meta or its executives, according to the ruling, which will remain in place until the dispute is settled in a private arbitration process.”This ruling affirms that Sarah Wynn-Williams’ false and defamatory book should never have been published,” Meta communications director Andy Stone said in a post on X, formerly Twitter.”It’s no secret we were interested in China; we explore lots of ideas,” Stone said.”You know what didn’t happen? We didn’t start offering our services in China.”- Talk nice -Stone said Wynn-Williams was “fired for poor performance and toxic behavior,” having made a series of unfounded allegations that the company investigated.The order by the arbitration body, the International Centre for Dispute Resolution, does not however stop Macmillan Publishers from distributing copies of the memoir.Macmillan said it was “appalled by Meta’s tactics to silence our author through the use of a non-disparagement clause in a severance agreement,” adding it would “absolutely continue to support and promote” the book.Emergency arbitrator Nicholas Gowan noted that Wynn-Williams failed to appear for a hearing in the case, but also that the ruling did not address the merits of the case.Meta has recently been criticized for stepping back from workplace diversity efforts and from battling misinformation in what critics say appears to be an alignment with Trump.Meta early this year announced it was replacing its fact-checking program, of which AFP was a part, with “community notes.”

Not long to go now: After more than nine months on the International Space Station, two astronauts are a step closer to returning home following the launch of a crew swap mission on Friday.A Falcon 9 rocket with a Crew Dragon fixed to its top blasted off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 7:03 pm (2303 GMT), carrying a four-member team bound for the orbital outpost.”We celebrate the countless individuals all over the world that have made this journey possible,” said astronaut Nichole Ayers, the designated pilot of the Crew-10 mission, just before launch.But the real focus is what their arrival enables: the long-overdue departure from the ISS of NASA duo Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams.The two former US Navy pilots have been stuck aboard the orbital lab since June after the Boeing Starliner spacecraft they were testing on its maiden crewed voyage suffered propulsion issues and was deemed unfit to fly them back to Earth.Instead, Starliner returned empty, without experiencing further major issues — and what was meant to have been a days-long roundtrip for Wilmore and Williams has now stretched past nine months.That is significantly longer than the standard ISS rotation for astronauts of roughly six months. But it is much shorter than the US space record of 371 days set by NASA astronaut Frank Rubio aboard the ISS in 2023, or the world record held by Russian cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov, who spent 437 continuous days aboard the Mir space station.Still, the unexpected nature of their prolonged stay away from their families — they had to receive additional clothing and personal care items because they hadn’t packed enough — has garnered interest and sympathy.- ‘Maybe they love each other’ -What began as a technical failure has also spiraled into a political flashpoint, as President Donald Trump and his close advisor, Elon Musk — who leads SpaceX — have repeatedly suggested that former president Joe Biden “abandoned” the pair intentionally and rejected a plan to bring them back sooner.That accusation caused uproar in the space community, especially since Musk did not provide any specifics.The plan for the duo’s return has been unchanged ever since they were reassigned to SpaceX’s Crew-9, which arrived in September aboard another Dragon carrying only two crew members — instead of the usual four — to make room for Wilmore and Williams.When Danish astronaut Andreas Mogensen pointed this out on X, Musk lashed out at him, using a slur for mentally disabled people.Some retired astronauts rushed to Mogensen’s defense — while Wilmore appeared to back Musk, saying his comments must have been “factual,” though he admitted he was not privy to any details.Trump, meanwhile, has drawn attention for his bizarre remarks about the situation, referring to Williams, a decorated former naval captain, as “the woman with the wild hair” and speculating about the personal dynamic between the two.”They’ve been left up there — I hope they like each other, maybe they love each other, I don’t know,” he said during a recent White House press conference.Only after the Crew-10 spaceship docks — scheduled for 11:30 pm Saturday — can the Crew-9 team begin preparing for departure and their ocean splashdown off the Florida coast, no sooner than March 19.Along with Wilmore and Williams, NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov will also be aboard the returning Dragon capsule.Space remains an area of cooperation between the United States and Russia despite the Ukraine conflict, with cosmonauts traveling to the ISS aboard SpaceX Crew Dragons and astronauts doing the same via Soyuz capsules launched from Kazakhstan.The Crew-10 team consists of NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, Japan’s Takuya Onishi, and Russia’s Kirill Peskov. During their mission, the new crew will conduct a range of scientific experiments, including flammability tests for future spacecraft designs and research into the effects of space on the human body.

The United States averted a government shutdown with hours to spare Friday as lawmakers already reeling from President Donald Trump’s radical federal spending cuts voted to keep the lights on through September.Facing a midnight deadline to fund the government or allow it to start winding down, Democrats dropped plans for a blockade on a Trump-backed bill passed earlier this week by the House — clearing its path for approval by the  Republican-led Senate.”In their typical fashion, Senate Democrats engaged in political theater to delay the inevitable and cause instability,” said Ted Cruz, chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee.”Americans voted for change under President Trump and Republican leadership after four years of chaos. The government is funded, let’s get back to work.”Democrats had been under immense pressure from their own grassroots to defy Trump and reject a text they said was full of harmful spending cuts.But Chuck Schumer, their leader in the upper chamber, shocked his rank-and-file ahead of the crunch vote by announcing he would back the Republican-drafted proposal. Ten Democrats — worried that they would be blamed over a stoppage with no obvious exit ramp — backed down from a showdown with Trump and allowed the bill to advance to a final floor vote, where it only needed Republican support.The week’s action in Congress marked a big victory for Trump, who turned the political thumbscrews on some holdouts among the fractious House Republicans — effectively stamping out a rebellion that could have ushered in a shutdown. The funding fight was focused on opposition to Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), spearheaded by tech billionaire Elon Musk, which is working to dramatically downsize the government.DOGE aims to cut federal spending by $1 trillion this year and claims to have made savings so far of more than $100 billion although its verified cost savings come to less than a tenth of that figure.- ‘Betrayal’ -Grassroots Democrats, infuriated by what they saw as Musk’s lawless rampage through the federal bureaucracy, wanted their leaders to stand up to DOGE and Trump.Schumer warned, however, that a shutdown could play into Trump and Musk’s hands, distracting from DOGE’s most unpopular actions, which now include firing half the Education Department’s workforce. The veteran campaigner published an op-ed in The New York Times defending his decision to support the package, a U-turn that sparked an angry backlash from grassroots critics and House Democrats who accused him of “betrayal” and of “caving.”Schumer argued that a shutdown would have allowed Musk and Trump to “destroy vital government services at a significantly faster rate than they can right now.””Under a shutdown, the Trump administration would have wide-ranging authority to deem whole agencies, programs and personnel nonessential, furloughing staff members with no promise they would ever be rehired,” Schumer wrote.Shutdowns are rare but disruptive and costly, as everyday functions like food inspections halt and parks, monuments and federal buildings shut up shop.Up to 900,000 federal employees can be furloughed, while another million deemed essential — from air traffic controllers to police — work but forego pay until normal service resumes.Trump praised Schumer for having “guts” in a Truth Social post that hailed “a whole new direction and beginning” for the country.”I appreciate Senator Schumer, and I think he did the right thing. Really, I’m very impressed by that,” he told reporters later. Success for the funding bill will come as a relief to Schumer, who was struggling to keep Senate Democrats together under a barrage of criticism from his own side.Patty Murray, the top Democrat in the funding negotiations, called the House bill a “dumpster fire.”More than 100 demonstrators gathered early Friday outside Schumer’s Brooklyn high-rise, shouting “Chuck betrayed us” and “Dems — don’t be chickens in a coup.”

US President Donald Trump launched a bitter attack against the “illegal” media and his political enemies Friday, as a speech at the Department of Justice turned into a grievance-filled diatribe.Trump — the first convicted felon to sit in the White House — was meant to be talking about law and order at an organization supposed to be insulated from political pressure.But instead the 78-year-old Republican spent much of his time rehearsing complaints that predecessor Joe Biden had “weaponized” the department against him and pledging to “expose” his foes.”Our predecessors turned the Department of Justice into the Department of Injustice,” Trump said. “I stand before you today to declare that those days are over, and they are never going to come back.”Since returning to office Trump has taken a sledgehammer to the Justice Department, which previously brought two criminal cases against him including one for allegedly trying to overturn the result of the 2020 election.But in his speech he vowed to go a step further and investigate his foes, saying: “We must be honest about the lies and abuses that have occurred within these walls.”He said his administration would “expel the rogue actors and corrupt forces from our government, we will… very much expose their egregious crimes and severe misconduct.” Trump reserved special ire for US media outlets which cover him critically.Speaking to an audience of prosecutors and law enforcement agents, Trump said broadcasters CNN and MSNBC and unidentified newspapers “literally write 97.6 percent bad about me” and “it has to stop. It has to be illegal.”He described the media outlets as “political arms of the Democrat party. And in my opinion they’re really corrupt and they’re illegal. What they do is illegal.” – ‘Fake news’ -Trump has made attacks on the US media a central part of his message ever since his first election to the presidency in 2016 — describing them as “enemies of the people” and “fake news.”Since starting his second term in January, Trump has moved quickly to pressure mainstream media like The Associated Press while boosting access to the White House for formerly fringe right-wing outlets.Trump’s extraordinary speech stepped up his breaking of decades-old political norms aimed at preserving judicial independence from the White House.Trump pledged on the campaign trail in the 2024 election to overhaul the department if he won a second term.He had it in his sights ever since Special Counsel Jack Smith charged him with plotting to overturn the results of the 2020 election, which he still refuses to admit he lost, and illegally taking thousands of secret documents with him on leaving the White House in 2021.But neither case came to trial and the special counsel, in line with a Justice Department policy of not prosecuting a sitting president, dropped them both after Trump won the November presidential election.Trump rocked the department on his first day back in office by pardoning more than 1,500 supporters who, in an unprecedented act of US political violence, stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, seeking to interrupt certification of Biden’s election win.

Meta wants to derail a freshly released memoir by a former employee whose scandalous allegations the tech giant argues are untrue and should never have been published.In “Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed and Lost Idealism”, Sarah Wynn-Williams recounts working at the tech titan from 2011 to 2017.Her book includes claims of sexual harassment by Joel Kaplan, a prominent Republican and ally of President Donald Trump who took over as head of Meta’s international affairs team early this year.She also wrote of Meta, then known as Facebook, exploring the possibility of breaking into the lucrative China market by appeasing government censors in that country.”The suggestion was that as part of the negotiations for the company to enter into China, the data of users in Hong Kong could be put in play,” Wynn-Williams said in an interview with NPR.An idea was to flag content in Hong Kong or Taiwan that went “viral” and refer it to a censorship body for review, according to Wynn-Williams.”It’s no secret we were interested in China; we explore lots of ideas,” Meta communications director Andy Stone said in a post on X, formerly Twitter.”You know what didn’t happen? We didn’t start offering our services in China.”Meta took its opposition to the memoir to arbitration, contending that it violates a non-disparagement contract Wynn-Williams signed when she worked with the tech company’s global affairs team.- Talk nice -An arbitration court this week granted Meta’s request to bar Wynn-Williams from promoting her book, sending the dispute to private negotiations about settling the case.”This ruling affirms that Sarah Wynn-Williams’ false and defamatory book should never have been published,” Stone said on X.Wynn-Williams was “fired for poor performance and toxic behavior,” having made a series of unfounded allegations that the company investigated, Stone said in an X post.The order by the International Centre for Dispute Resolution does stop the publisher from distributing copies of the memoir released on Tuesday.Emergency Arbitrator Nicholas Gowan noted that Wynn-Williams did not appear for a hearing held prior to the ruling.The order bars Wynn-Williams from further promoting her book or making derogatory remarks about Meta, and from promoting her book.And Wynn-Williams must retract previous critical comments about Meta or its executives, the ruling states.Gowan noted that the ruling did not address the merits of the case.Neither Wynn-Williams nor her publisher responded to requests for comment.Meta’s access to data of billions of users around the world makes it a target for investigations and accusations, from a Cambridge Analytica scandal in 2018 to revelations in 2021 by a whistleblower that it put profit over the well-being of users.Recently, Meta has been criticized for stepping back from workplace diversity efforts and from battling misinformation in an apparent alignment with Trump.Meta early this year announced it was replacing its fact-checking program, of which AFP was a part, with “community notes”.

Sean “Diddy” Combs pleaded not guilty Friday to a new indictment that added accusations to his US federal sex trafficking and racketeering case.The superceding indictment says that as the hip hop magnate sexually abused people and coerced them into drug-fueled sex parties using threats and violence, he forced employees to work long hours while demanding their silence.The 55-year-old wore a tan shirt and pants in the Manhattan courtroom to enter the plea in the criminal case scheduled to go to trial this spring, with in-person jury selection to tentatively begin May 5 and opening statements expected May 12.Combs has denied all charges.Public allegations have been building against the Grammy winner since late 2023, when singer Cassie, whose real name is Casandra Ventura, alleged Combs subjected her to more than a decade of coercion by physical force and drugs as well as a 2018 rape.Along with the federal criminal case, Combs faces a mountain of civil suits, complaints that allege harrowing abuse by the artist with assistance from a loyal network of employees and associates.The one-time rap superstar has been incarcerated since September, during which time he’s started to look noticeably aged, with a crop of salt-and-pepper hair.During Friday’s hearing he smiled, waved and blew kisses to a row of supporters including two of his children and his mother.

Monkeys infected with Ebola can be cured with a pill, according to a new study out Friday that could pave the way for more practical, affordable treatments in humans.First identified in 1976 and thought to have crossed over from bats, Ebola is a deadly viral disease spread through direct contact with bodily fluids, causing severe bleeding and organ failure.Because outbreaks primarily affect sub-Saharan Africa, pharmaceutical companies have lacked financial incentives to develop treatments, and the sporadic nature of outbreaks has made clinical trials difficult.A vaccine was only widely approved in 2019, and while two intravenous antibody treatments improve outcomes, they require costly cold storage and are difficult to administer in some of the world’s poorest regions.”We’re really trying to come up with something that was more practical, easier to use, that could be used to help prevent, control, and contain outbreaks,” Thomas Geisbert, a virologist at The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, who led the new study published in Science Advances, told AFP.For their experiment, Geisbert and colleagues tested the antiviral Obeldesivir, the oral form of intravenous Remdesivir, originally developed for Covid-19.Obeldesivir is a “polymerase inhibitor,” meaning it blocks an enzyme crucial for viral replication.The team infected rhesus and cynomolgus macaques with a high dose of the Makona variant of the Ebola virus.A day after exposure, ten monkeys then received an Obeldesivir pill daily for ten days, while three control monkeys received no treatment and died.Obeldesivir protected 80 percent of the cynomolgus macaques and 100 percent of the rhesus macaques, which are biologically closer to humans. The drug not only cleared the virus from the treated monkeys’ blood but also triggered an immune response, helping them develop antibodies while avoiding organ damage.Geisbert explained that while the number of monkeys was relatively small, the study was statistically powerful because they were exposed to an extraordinarily high dose of the virus — roughly 30,000 times the lethal dose for humans. This reduced the need for additional control monkeys, limiting unnecessary animal deaths.The researcher, who has worked on Ebola since the 1980s and is credited with discovering the Reston strain, said one of the most exciting aspects of Obeldesivir is its “broad-spectrum” protection, compared to the approved antibody treatments that only work against the Zaire species of Ebola. “That’s a huge advantage,” Geisbert said.Pharmaceutical maker Gilead is currently advancing Obeldesivir to Phase 2 clinical trials for Marburg virus, a close relative of Ebola.Geisbert also emphasized the importance of funding from the US National Institutes of Health, amid reports that dozens of grants have been canceled under President Donald Trump’s administration.”All these drugs and vaccines that were developed against Ebola and a lot of these exotic viruses and pathogens — 90 percent of the money comes from the US government,” he said, adding, “I think the general public would agree we need treatments for Ebola.”

The US aviation regulator said Friday it has ordered stricter safety around Washington’s Ronald Reagan airport after a devastating collision between a passenger jet and a military helicopter.Helicopter traffic will be restricted around the airport, where an American Eagle airliner hit a military Black Hawk on January 29, killing 67 people.The Federal Aviation Administration also closed part of a corridor near Ronald Reagan National Airport that the military helicopter was using when it collided with the Bombardier CRJ-700 jet. Both fell into the freezing Potomac River.The route was just 23 meters (75 feet) from the corridor used by the American Eagle jet as it came into land.The National Transportation Safety Board has already warned of a risk of more collisions around the airport unless helicopter access was cut.The FAA said it was taking “a series of steps to improve safety” around Reagan airport following NTSB recommendations.These included “permanently restricting non-essential helicopter operations” around the airport and “eliminating helicopter and fixed-wing mixed traffic”, the FAA statement said.Reagan airport is in a heavily urbanized zone close to the Defense Department headquarters and the FAA said alternative routes would be found for helicopters.”If a helicopter must fly through the airspace on an urgent mission, such as lifesaving medical, priority law enforcement, or presidential transport, the FAA will keep them specific distances away from airplanes.”Two runways will be closed when helicopters on urgent missions are near the airport, the agency added.NTSB head Jennifer Homendy said this week that the distances between helicopter traffic and commercial airliners around the airport posed “an intolerable risk to aviation safety”.The investigation into the January 29 disaster is not complete but has already highlighted different versions over the altitude the military helicopter was flying at and communication difficulties between the crew and the control tower and the looming American Eagle jet.