Nasa is back in full contact with its lost Voyager 2 probe months earlier than expected, the space agency said.
A signal was picked up on Tuesday but thanks to an “interstellar shout” - a powerful instruction - its antenna is now back facing Earth.
Staff used the “highest-power transmitter” to send a message to the spacecraft and timed it to be sent during “the best conditions” so the antenna lined up with the command, Voyager project manager Suzanne Dodd told AFP.
After communications were lost, the probe had been unable to receive commands or send back data to Nasa’s Deep Space Network - an array of giant radio antennas across the world.
On Monday, the space agency said its huge dish in Australia’s capital, Canberra, was trying to detect any stray signals from Voyager 2.
The probes were designed to take advantage of a rare alignment of outer planets, which occurs about every 176 years, to explore Jupiter and Saturn.
One of Italy’s most dangerous fugitives has been caught in Greece after a photo of him cheering on his football team gave away his whereabouts.
Vincenzo La Porta, 60, is thought to have close ties to the Camorra organised crime gang in Naples.
Police finally arrested him on Friday while he was riding his moped on the Greek island of Corfu and he is now currently in a jail awaiting extradition to Italy.
The authorities were relentless in their pursuit of La Porta, tracking his financial and online movements closely and “waited for him to make a misstep”.
The police spotted him in a photo outside a Corfu restaurant among Napoli fans donning a baseball cap and waving the team’s sky blue and white colours.
In January, this year, an Italian mafia boss who was on the run for decades was arrested after a Google Maps sighting.
There’s been a steady stream of glowing reports on state TV portraying the reconstruction of Mariupol as proceeding at a “record-breaking” pace and life returning to normal.
Satellite images analysed by the BBC indeed show multiple high-rise estates appearing in existing neighbourhoods across the city over the past year, mostly near the outskirts.
These include an entire neighbourhood - with an area of about 315,000 sqm, according to satellite footage - in the city’s east, another part of Mariupol badly hit by the fighting.
One woman whose block was demolished, Anna, told local pro-Russian TV station Mariupol 24 she was denied a replacement flat because she owns an 8 sqm shed in a village 40km outside the city.
Built by a private Russian construction company, its website creates the impression of a luxury development, and it will be sold on the free market to mortgage holders.
And if it recaptures the city, property rights given during occupation will likely be declared void, Oona Hathaway, a professor of law at Yale University, told the BBC.
Prosecutors in Donald Trump’s upcoming trial have asked for limits on what the ex-president can publicly say about the case, after he shared a threatening message online.
In their filing, the office of Special Counsel Jack Smith said the post raised concerns that Mr Trump could publicly reveal secret material, including grand jury transcripts obtained from prosecutors.
The Republican has already hit out against the special counsel, telling a crowd of supporters in Alabama on Friday that Mr Smith was a “deranged human being” and “a bad guy”.
Judge Tanya Chutkan gave Mr Trump’s legal team until 17:00 local time on Monday to respond to the submission.
In a statement shortly after the filing, a spokesperson for Mr Trump defended the social media post and insisted that he had been targeting political opponents.
Judge Chutkan, a noted hardliner on cases against those accused of participation in the Capitol riots, is expected to call in attorneys from both sides on 28 August to discuss setting a trial date.
In their filing, the office of Special Counsel Jack Smith said the post raised concerns that Mr Trump could publicly reveal secret material, including grand jury transcripts obtained from prosecutors.
Is this a problem that doesn’t have a solution?
Like, if I break confidentiality I’m fired. Is there not some “break the rules and we throw you in jail” or are they too cowardly?
It’s pretty complex to put a former president in jail. The logistics, alone, are a nightmare. Never mind the upheaval that would cause with the right-wing. So it’s not just being cowardly.
When Afraa was found in the rubble of a collapsed building in Syria, her umbilical cord was still attached to her mother, who had died just after giving birth.
Baby Afraa was the only member of her immediate family to survive - her father, Abu Rudaina, and her four siblings died, along with her mother.
When Afraa was in hospital, thousands of people around the world offered to adopt her, so Khalil and his wife Hala had to prove they really were related before they were allowed to take care of her.
Eventually, the DNA results confirmed Hala was a blood relative - the sister of Afraa’s father - and the little girl was discharged from hospital.
We buried them the next day in a nearby village called Hajj Iskandar, where the Civil Defence had dug mass graves."
Delivering aid to the four million people living in this rebel-held area of Syria is extremely difficult, where most of the residents have already been displaced by the country’s 12-year war.
Storms bearing unusually torrential rain and ferocious winds this early in the north Pacific typhoon season have flooded large swathes of East Asia, with China among the countries worst hit.
People in Beijing and neighbouring Hebei province fled their homes on inflatable boats and lorries as Doksuri, a former super typhoon, drenched China’s north-east.
Then, there’s the threat of typhoon Khanun out at sea off China’s east coast, which threatens to intensify rains in areas hit by Doksuri.
The waterlogged scenes also played out in the Philippines, where Khanun, Doksuri and Talim exacerbated seasonal monsoon rains.
While storm-weary Filipinos went about with as much of their daily routines as they could, the typhoons highlighted perennial problems of flooding in the capital, Manila, and its suburbs of Bulacan and Pampanga.
Slow-moving Khanun lashed Okinawa in the middle of the week and threatens to curve back to mainland Japan while intensifying rains in China.
The Philippine Coast Guard has accused its Chinese counterpart of firing water cannon at its vessels and blocking them in the disputed South China Sea.
It said this happened when its ship was escorting boats carrying supplies for Filipino soldiers stationed on one of the contested Spratly Islands.
In a statement, the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) said the incident happened on Saturday as its vessels were heading to Second Thomas Shoal in the Spratly Islands.
The South China Sea is now one of the world’s biggest flashpoints, especially as US-China tensions have soared in recent years.
Access to these waters is key to defending Taiwan at a time when China’s claims over the self-governed island have intensified.
The waterways also host $5tn (£4tn) of global trade every year, raising concerns that Beijing’s increasing footprint could restrict commerce.
Elon Musk has said X, formerly known as Twitter, will pay the legal bills of anyone who is treated unfairly by their employer for their activity on his social media platform.
On Sunday, Mr Musk told users that financial assistance from his platform would have “no limits”.
Mr Musk is a self-described “free speech absolutist” and has been vocal in his criticisms of the platform’s policies on moderating content prior to his takeover.
When he announced that he was taking over Twitter in April last year, Mr Musk said “free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated”.
More recently, the firm that owns Twitter announced that it was suing an anti-hate organisation whose research criticised the platform.
X Corp accused CCDH of “unlawful acts” to “improperly gain access” to its data.
A Russian “guided bomb” has hit a blood transfusion centre in north-eastern Ukraine, killing two people and injuring four, Ukrainian officials say.
Volodymyr Zelensky posted an image of the building on fire as a result of Saturday night’s attack in around Kupiansk, in the Kharkiv region.
The city of Kupiansk and nearby settlements were seized by Russian troops in the first few days of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, launched in February 2022.
President Zelensky also said that on Saturday Russia separately carried out a missile attack, targeting an aeronautical company run by group Motor Sich in the western Khmelnytskyi region.
On Sunday, Russia’s air defences destroyed a drone as it approached Moscow, the city’s mayor, Sergei Sobyanin, said.
Last week, an office block on a Moscow skyscraper was hit two days in a row by Ukrainian drones, Russian authorities said.
bbc.co.uk
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