List of All Articles with Tag 'a'

Wildfires have cost Europe an estimated €4.1 billion ($4.43 billion) in damages so far this year, as extreme

SpaceX has broken its own record for the number of launches in a single year with its 62nd rocket sent into space on Sunday. A Falcon 9 carrying Starlink internet satellites lifted off from Nasa’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 10.47pm local time, surpassing the previous milestone of 61 launches set in 2022. It was the 10th flight for the first stage booster rocket, with SpaceX also breaking a separate record earlier this year for launching reused rockets. The Falcon 9 rocket landed on a drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean after delivering the Starlink satellites into low-Earth orbit. SpaceX boss Elon Musk said SpaceX could complete up to 100 rocket launches this year, making the private space firm by far the most prolific company or space agency to send payloads into space. “SpaceX has delivered ~80 per cent of all Earth payload mass to orbit in 2023. China is ~10 per cent and rest of world other ~10 per cent,” Mr Musk posted on X, formerly known as Twitter. “Based on the Falcon launch plan for next year, SpaceX will deliver ~90 per cent of all Earth payload to orbit. Starship will take that to >99 per cent in future years. These magnitudes are madness to consider, but necessary to make consciousness multiplanetary.” SpaceX’s Starship is the largest and most powerful rocket ever built – measuring 121 metres in height and with a thrust of 5,000 metric tons – but is yet to successfully complete an orbital flight. Following a successful high-altitude flight test in 2021, SpaceX attempted a 90 minute orbital flight earlier this year but it exploded just three minutes into the flight. The next attempt is expected to take place this month, though no exact date has been set. More than 1,000 design changes have been made to the craft since the first failed attempt, including new venting systems and heat shields to improve the stage separation of the upper and lower stages of the rocket. The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is yet to grant a launch licence for the latest mission amid concerns about issues revealed in the first orbital launch attempt. SpaceX has already secured a multi-billion dollar deal with Nasa to keep developing Starship for use on the US space agency’s Artemis mission, which aims to return astronauts to the Moon this decade. Mr Musk has previously said that Starship is integral to his plans to turn humanity into a multi-planetary species, with the aim of deploying a fleet of Starships to establish a permanent colony on Mars before 2050. Read More ‘It’s like an airport’: How SpaceX normalised rocket launches SpaceX crew streak across sky before splashing down off Florida coast Watch live: SpaceX launches satellites for US Space Development Agency Elon Musk’s SpaceX sued over allegations of hiring discrimination

A handful of gamers have erupted across social media due to the option to select pronouns for characters in the game Starfield. The role-playing game (RPG) allows players to customise their characters, including deciding which pronouns they have. The feature was discovered after the game went live on Friday 1 September for those who had pre-ordered. Bethesda, who have previously made games such as The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and Fallout 4, allowed Starfield players to select they/them pronouns for non-binary characters if they so pleased. But a small number of notable gaming streamers seemed extremely upset over the decision. They accused video game publishes of going “woke”. Streamer Herschel ‘Guy’ Beahm IV, known by his online alias Dr Disrespect, was outraged both at the pronoun option and the head of publishing at Bethesda, Pete Hines, having his pronouns in his Twitter/X bio, saying “it all makes sense now. Beahm also shared with his viewers that he had tried to work with Bethesda prior to the release of Starfield, but was told no due to “past controversies.” Another streamer known online as 'Heel vs Babyface', revealed his sheer lack of imagination when he screamed at his camera for two-and-a-half minutes claiming the choice of pronouns meant he was being “dragged out” of the immersive experience of the game. “Do you want to get immersed in our world? Yeah well guess what, f**king pronouns,” he screamed. “F**king gender ambiguity. F**king current-day California s**t, because that’s all we f**king know.” As expected, many mocked those who were upset over a two-second feature in a video game. One user called Heel vs Babyface “pathetic”: Others told him to “grow up”: Outside of streamers who are unable to comprehend an experience outside of their own, Starfield has received less than favourable reviews from critics for valid reasons such as poor performance and calling the title “disjointed”. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

West Virginia University is recommending slashing its language department and dozens of other programs amid a $45 million budget shortfall

Disney is reportedly investigating footage that appears to show staff twerking while dressed in their family-friendly character uniform. In a viral video shared to a TikTok account called 'Illegal Disney,' the famed dog Pluto was spotted provocatively dancing to the popular audio that sings: "Here comes the hurricane b****". Another clip shows behind-the-scenes footage of the character heads in the dressing room. "Warning! Will ruin Disney magic. Disney backstage," the caption read. It has since been reported that Disney seniors are fuming about the clips. A source told The Sun that while it "looks silly," it is "absolutely paramount" to protect the integrity of the characters. "They’ve asked top investigators to shut down the feed and try to identify those responsible, who are in breach of their employment contracts," they continued. "They’re one of the most protective companies in the world because they know their biggest customers are young children who don’t want the illusion shattered. "Some of the clips show the characters dancing and twerking in their outfits — it’s just not on-message." @illegal.disney #disneyillegal #disney #fyp #viral It comes after a NSFW X/Twitter account posing as Disney Junior was verified earlier this year, sparking outrage on the platform. Elon Musk's blue tick subscription model meant anyone could gain verification if they paid per month. The owner of the profile was seemingly stunned by their newfound tick status. "No f**king way," they tweeted under the username @DisneyJuniorUK after spotting the gold badge – proof enough that this wasn't an account for kids. Indy100 reached out to Disney for comment. Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

A European Union law will require portable devices to have a common charger by 2024.

Two of the biggest names in YouTube have been feuding, with viewers surprised to see there was beef between MrBeast and Jacksepticeye. It comes following the circulation of a clip on social media, which saw Jacksepticeye asked questions about his fellow YouTuber. The footage shows the Irish 33-year-old hooked up to a lie detector, while giving his honest opinions on MrBeast – the biggest name on the video streaming platform. When asked about his content, Jacksepticeye said that MrBeast "ruined YouTube" because he made videos which were all about "views, money, and popularity." TommyInnit also appears in the video, and when he asked if MrBeast ruined YouTube, Jacksepticeye replied: “Yes. Because it became more about views, money, and popularity than it did about having fun. If he had fun doing those videos, they'd be longer. We'd see the fun." The clip quickly went viral, and MrBeast replied to him by taking issue with his comments. "So, I, 'ruined YouTube' because I didn’t buy a mansion and sports cars and instead reinvested my $ into making content/ocused on doing good and inspiring kids to help people?" he wrote on Twitter. "'If he had fun the videos would be longer.' What does that even mean, lol? You think I’d give up every hour of my life for 14 years if I didn’t have fun?” He went on to say: "This clip is insanely disrespectful IMO (in my opinion) and obviously there is so much I could say about his content but I’ll just take the punches and be the bigger man. Sigh." The disagreement understandably raised a lot of eyebrows among fans, but it now looks like the pair have managed to patch things up. They both posted on Twitter, with an exchange that seemed to suggest they’d been chatting privately and were no longer unhappy with each other. MrBeast posted a smiling emoji and said: “We messaged, we’re Gucci now”, followed by a smiling emoji. Jacksepticeye then replied to the message with a cowboy and thumbs-up emoji. Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings

(This Sept. 3 story has been refiled to add dropped words 'more than' in paragraph 6) MUNICH The

GENEVA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sep 4, 2023--

Big Tech is bracing for the European Union’s biggest ever clampdown on anti-competitive practices in the digital economy,

Non-native species -- displaced either by global trade and travel or by climate change -- pose “a severe

The Moon is a constant in the night sky, but all is not actually as it seems. It turns out that scientists have discovered the Moon is drifting away from Earth, and it’s changing everything we thought we knew about our planet’s relationship with its only natural satellite. It’s also having a very real impact on the length of days on our planet – albeit at an incredibly slow rate. By moving away from Earth over the course of millions of years, the Moon is simultaneously making the length of the average day longer. A study by a team at the University of Wisconsin-Madison focused on rock from a formation aged at 90 million years. By doing so, they were able to analyse the Earth’s interactions with the Moon 1.4 billion years ago. It turns out that the Moon is moving away from Earth at us at 3.82 centimetres a year. That means that, eventually, it’ll result in Earth days lasting 25 hours in 200 million years time. Stephen Meyers, who is a professor of geoscience at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said: “As the moon moves away, the Earth is like a spinning figure skater who slows down as they stretch their arms out.” He added: “One of our ambitions was to use astrochronology to tell time in the most distant past, to develop very ancient geological time scales. “We want to be able to study rocks that are billions of years old in a way that is comparable to how we study modern geologic processes.” It’s not the only story that changes our understanding of the Moon recently. Scientists have also just uncovered billions of years’ worth of secrets buried beneath the surface of the moon – all thanks to China’s space programme, which has uncovered hidden structures which can help us start to piece together the Moon’s past. Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings