SpaceX is ready to launch its next-generation Starship rocket, according to Elon Musk, pending regulatory approval. Starship is the most powerful rocket ever built, measuring 121 metres in height and capable of producing 5,000 metric tons of thrust. Once testing is complete, the craft will form part of Nasa’s Artemis mission to return astronauts to the Moon. Mr Musk also plans to use the rocket to transport people and cargo around the solar system, eventually using fleets of Starships to establish a permanent human colony on Mars. The next launch will be the second attempt at an orbital flight test, with the only previous effort ending in an explosion just three minutes into the 90 minute flight earlier this year. Each launch attempt requires approval from the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), while also requiring favourable weather conditions. “Starship is ready to launch, awaiting FAA licence approval,” Mr Musk posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Wednesday. A spokesperson for the FAA previously told The Independent that the launch licence application for Starship depends on various requirements being met, including reviews on policy, payload, safety, airspace integration, financial responsibility and environmental impacts. “The FAA will make a licence determination only after the agency is satisfied SpaceX meets all licensing, safety and other regulatory requirements,” the spokesperson said. SpaceX typically only reveals the date for rocket tests a few days before they take place, though numerous factors can still delay them. Weather at SpaceX’s Starbase facility in Texas is currently favourable for a launch, though the area can be prone to storms and hurricanes between June and November. SpaceX performed its 62nd orbital rocket launch of 2023 earlier this week, breaking its own record for the most number of launches in a single year. The private company has delivered roughly 80 per cent of all Earth payload mass to orbit in 2023, with Mr Musk predicting that this figure will rise to more than 99 per cent once Starship is in operation. “These magnitudes are madness to consider, but necessary to make consciousness multiplanetary,” he posted on X on Sunday. Read More SpaceX smashes rocket launch record as Musk eyes historic Starship mission SpaceX abandons YouTube for live streams of launches in favour of X/Twitter

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Florida Governor Ron DeSantis wants to meet with Vice President Kamala Harris to discuss her criticism of the state’s Black history school curriculum standards after she joined widespread outrage over newly approved guidelines that diminish the impact of slavery and racist violence. “In Florida we are unafraid to have an open and honest dialogue about the issues. And you clearly have no trouble ducking down to Florida on short notice,” the governor wrote in a letter on 31 July, referencing her recent remarks in the state. “So given your grave concern (which, I must assume, is sincere) about what you think our standards say, I am officially inviting you back down to Florida to discuss our African American History standards,” he added. The administration also has invited William B Allen, one of the members of the working group that developed the standards who has a long history of inflammatory remarks and partisan rhetoric. The Independent has requested comment from the office of Ms Harris. The vice president travelled to Orlando on Tuesday to deliver remarks at the 20th Women’s Missionary Society of the African Methodist Episcopal Church Quadrennial Convention. Her visit follows remarks in the state on 21 July to condemn the state’s “propaganda” and the “extremist, so-called leaders” who support it. Though she did not name him or any other Florida officials, the vice president’s speech was directly aimed at the governor, whose administration has sought to radically overhaul public education and establish a “parents’ rights” agenda that restricts honest lessons of race and racism, threatens discussion of LGBT+ people and events, targets libraries and reshapes local school boards. A new set of standards for African American history in Florida schools will teach middle schoolers how enslaved people “developed skills” that could be “applied for personal benefit”. Another guideline instructs high schoolers to be taught that a massacre led by white supremacists against Black residents in Ocoee to stop them from voting in 1920 included “acts of violence perpetrated against and by African Americans.” Civil rights advocates, educators and lawmakers have warned that the guidelines present a distorted, revisionist picture of American history. “Adults know what slavery really was. It involved rape, it involved torture, it involved taking a baby from their mother, it involved some of the worst examples of depriving humanity of people in our world,” Ms Harris said in her remarks in Jacksonville. Members of the working group and the Florida Board of Education have defended the unanimously approved standards, assuring that they include comprehensive lessons on American history, including its darkest chapters. Mr Allen, a Black professor emeritus at Michigan State University who also sits on the national advisory board of the right-wing think tank Center for Urban Renewal and Education, has repeatedly defended the working group’s guidelines. A review of his past statements from Popular Information reveals a history of incendiary, contrarian remarks used to bolster and legitimise right-wing ideology. In 1989, he faced protests while participating in a panel titled “Blacks? Animals? Homosexuals? What is a Minority?” on which he claimed that special classes of protection for LGBT+ people and other minorities are a “fatal” mistake that heighten “tensions and antagonism”. Creating legal protections for minority groups “is the beginning of the evil of reducing American blacks to an equality with animals and then seducing other groups to seek the same charitable treatment,” according to prepared remarks. His speech was denounced by the US Civil Rights Commission – on which he was then serving as chair – as “disgusting” and “necessarily inflammatory”. That same year, he also was charged with kidnapping a 14-year-old girl from a Native American reservation in Arizona while she was the subject of a custody battle between her mother and a white couple who adopted her. Mr Allen also has opposed race-conscious admissions in higher education, including leading a campaign with a group that included members of the conservative Christian Hillsdale College and right-wing interest group the Heritage Foundation. He also has criticised The 1619 Project, which is explicitly banned from Florida schools, and has rejected concepts including “systemic racism, institutional racism [and] white privilege.” Mr DeSantis has routinely accused “the left” and Democratic officials of “indoctrinating” students in the state while he promotes an agenda that bans honest discussions of race and racism, sexuality and gender. The governor’s administration also recently approved materials from right-wing political advocacy group PragerU to be included in K-12 classrooms. The founder himself has said that those lessons are explicitly designed to indoctrinate. The campaign for Mr DeSantis, who is seeking the Republican nomination for president in 2024, has fired back at Black Republicans in Congress who have joined criticism of the African American history standards, including US Reps Byron Donalds and John James, as well as 2024 rival and South Carolina Senator Tim Scott. Both Mr James and Mr Donalds have endorsed Donald Trump. Read More Why Florida’s new curriculum on slavery is becoming a political headache for Ron DeSantis Most of Florida work group behind controversial new guidelines on African American history did not agree, report says The GOP primary is already decided. We’re just pretending it isn’t

Elon Musk faced backlash for arguing that people who worked from home were “morally wrong” because it was unfair to those who could not work remotely. In an interview with CNBC’s David Faber on Tuesday, Mr Musk described the people working remotely as “laptop classes”, saying that the issue extended beyond productivity concerns. He likened the concept of working from home to a quote often attributed to Marie Antoinette, the last queen of France before the French Revolution. “I think that the whole notion of work from home is a bit like the fake Marie Antoinette quote, ‘Let them eat cake’,” Mr Musk said. “It’s not just a productivity thing. I think it’s morally wrong.” Mr Musk criticised the hypocrisy of expecting service industry workers to go to work while others had the privilege of working from home. “Get off the goddamn moral high horse with the work-from-home bulls**t,” he said. “People building the cars, servicing the cars, building houses, fixing houses, making the food, making all the things that people consume. It’s messed up to assume that, yes, they have to go to work, but you don’t” he said. “It’s not just a productivity thing, I think it’s morally wrong.” The tech mogul has been a fierce advocate of return-to-office policies. He imposed a strict policy in Tesla in June 2022, warning employees that they would lose their jobs if they did not comply. The policy required employees to spend a minimum of 40 hours in the office a week and anything less would be “phoning it in”. “The laptop class is living in la-la land,” he said. Mr Musk’s comments on work-from-home culture generated a divided response on the internet, with many lashing out at him. “Being one of the world’s richest man, @elonmusk sounded tone deaf when he himself expects ppl to eat cake rather than share his wealth. @davidfaber just sounds like a boomer with his ‘productivity’ whining. Ppl are as productive and engaged working from home - if not more,” a Twitter user said. Another user, Lora Kolodny, pointed to another CNBC report which said Tesla will carve out deals for “exceptional” employees amid the company’s hardline policy to return to work. The report, which cited sources, said Tesla was struggling to bring all its employees back to the office due to a lack of resources. “Uhhh - REALLY!? Because as far as I know, Tesla and Twitter under Musk’s management will grant ‘exceptional’ employees right to work from home. Memba this?” Ms Kolodny said. In the hour-long interview, Mr Musk also said he did not care for the consequences of his unfiltered and unabashed views on Twitter even if it meant incurring financial losses. “I’ll say what I want to say, and if the consequence of that is losing money, so be it,” he said. He added that Twitter will attempt to rehire some of its staff after dramatically firing employees following his controversial takeover of the microblogging platform. He acknowledged that the job cuts were too deep. “Desperate times call for desperate measures… Unfortunately, if you do it fast, there are some babies who will be thrown out,” Mr Musk said, adding there is a possibility of rehiring people who were let go. Read More Lawsuit filed against Twitter, Saudi Arabia; claims acts of transnational repression committed Elon Musk subpoenaed by US Virgin Islands in Jeffrey Epstein lawsuit Linda Yaccarino: How Elon Musk may have hired his biggest critic to head Twitter AI pioneer warns UK is failing to protect against ‘existential threat’ of machines Elon Musk announces Linda Yaccarino as new CEO of Twitter How Elon Musk may have hired his biggest critic

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LAUSANNE, Switzerland--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jun 14, 2023--

Ahead of the game's release on Friday (27.10.23), fans can listen to the full soundtrack on Spotify.