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Explanation: Discovered on July 1 with the NASA-funded ATLAS (Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert, System) survey telescope in Rio Hurtado, Chile, 3I/ATLAS is so designated as the third known interstellar object to pass through our Solar System It follows 1I/ʻOumuamua in 2017 and the comet 2I/Borisov in 2019. Also known as C/2025 N1, 3I/ATLAS is clearly a comet, its diffuse cometary coma, a cloud of gas and dust surrounding an icy nucleus, is easily seen in these images from the large Gemini North telescope on Maunakea, Hawai‘i. The left panel tracks the comet as it moves across the sky against fixed...

LONDON — In a protest to make the nation's democratic process more inclusive, Muslims in the United Kingdom marched to demand that the voting age be lowered to 13 so their wives would be able to vote. Following intense debate on the wisdom and necessity of lowering the voting age in the UK, lawmakers agreed that there could be a case to be made for making it legal for the child brides of the country's millions of Muslim residents to vote in elections. "Every wife in the UK should have the right to vote, even when they are children," said...

America's first national park and the first and oldest in the world, Yellowstone National Park, is regularly in the headlines. Just recently, Yellowstone visitors shared the grim reality of trying to gain entry to the park while it experiences record-high visitation—on a Tuesday morning of all days, not even on a busy weekend. However, some of the most eyebrow-raising stories coming out of the park typically involve visitors regularly crossing the line; for example, only days ago, a park visitor was spotted actually tasting the thermal water of one of Yellowstone's springs. Naturally, though, accounts of tourists behaving badly also...

After weeks of speculation, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced a government reshuffle with economist Yulia Svyrydenko as prime minister and Justice Minister Olga Stefanishyna as the next US ambassador. Svyrydenko played a key role in concluding a natural resources agreement giving Washington preferential access to Ukraine's mineral wealth. -snip- Svyrydenko, who was confirmed by Ukraine's parliament on Thursday, is known for finalising a natural resources deal with the United States that nearly derailed ties between the countries. "She was the key and the only person leading these negotiations. She managed to prevent them from unravelling," said Tymofiy Mylovanov, a former...

In the latest episode of the “IMO” podcast — the same one where Barack Obama appeared alongside Michelle to help shut down rumors of a looming divorce — the former first couple shifted the conversation to the topic of boys and fatherhood. But what started as a seemingly harmless discussion quickly veered into unsettling territory.(snip) Obama didn’t just downplay the importance of fathers; he openly advocated for embedding young boys to be groomed by members of the LGBTQ community. The message was that traditional masculinity isn’t enough, and boys need to be groomed — ideologically, emotionally, and socially — by...

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt reiterated on Thursday that Russia must reach either a ceasefire or a peace deal with Ukraine within the next 50 days if it wants to avoid facing "steep" tariffs and secondary sanctions, which would target countries buying oil from it. Leavitt acknowledged that the trade between the United States and Russia amounted to only $3 billion last year but noted that it is "still a lot of money," and tariffs on such trade could motivate Russia to accept a ceasefire. The White House press secretary noted Trump has put "many hours" into resolving the...

How bad are things for the Democrats right now? They're embracing extremist politicians, illegal aliens, and even demonizing law enforcement. They are in chaos, with no real leaders. Now, there are multiple investigations into the cover-up of the cognitive decline of the "leader" they did have - Joe Biden. But they're Democrats. So they can always go lower. And they just did, in a new Quinnipiac poll. "The job approval rating for congressional Democrats has plunged to another all-time low, with fewer than 2 in 10 Americans happy with their work on Capitol Hill." "Only 19% of registered voters approve...

Spartacus has returned! An enraged Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) shouted over Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) for eight straight minutes Thursday before joining his fellow Democrats in storming out of a business meeting to consider President Trump’s nominees — including his former personal attorney, Emil Bove. Booker threw a fit after Grassley spurned his request to debate Bove’s nomination to the Philadelphia-based Third Circuit Court of Appeals and proceeded with a vote to report the nominee to the Senate floor after Democrats vacated the meeting room. “I don’t understand this,” Booker raged. “What are you afraid of, about...

OPINION: The First Amendment exists to protect dissent and divergent opinions, not just ideas that align with rigid campus orthodoxy The University of Oregon just learned a very costly lesson about free speech. This cautionary tale began in June 2022, when Portland State University Professor Bruce Gilley responded to a University of Oregon Division of Equity and Inclusion “racism interrupter” post on Twitter by retweeting it with the comment “all men are created equal.” Ironically, it seems that UO’s definition of “inclusion” didn’t include tolerance for the principle of colorblindness. Rather than recognizing that Gilley’s quote from the Declaration of...

Maurene Comey lashed out at Trump in a message to colleagues after she was fired. Maurene Comey, daughter of James Comey, was fired as a federal prosecutor in the Manhattan US Attorney’s office on Wednesday. “There was no specific reason given for her firing from the U.S. attorney’s office in the Southern District of New York, according to one of the people who spoke to the AP on the condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters,” the AP reported. Maurene Comey didn’t call out Trump by name, but she attacked the president and his administration in a message after being...

Its parish priest, the Rev. Gabriel Romanelli of the Holy Family Church, became well known after it was revealed that Pope Francis used to call him every evening during the war in Gaza. A man and a woman who were seriously injured in the midmorning strike died in surgery at the nearby al-Ahly Hospital, according to the hospital’s director of surgery, Mostafa Naim. The patriarchate later confirmed the death of a third person, Najwa Abu Daoud. Naim identified two of the dead as Foomya Ayad and Saad Eissa Salama. They were Orthodox Christians but were sheltering at the church, according...

President Donald Trump has a Texas-sized conundrum on his hands as Republicans prepare for a Senate primary in the state, with GOP Sen. John Cornyn making his case for the White House to get involved as he tries to fend off a challenge from state Attorney General Ken Paxton. But, so far, Trump is staying on the sidelines. “I’ve talked to him about it a number of times. He is not ready to make that endorsement,” Cornyn told NBC News on Tuesday. “I think as we start advertising and closing the gap in the polls, hopefully he’ll see fit to...

President Trump has been diagnosed with chronic venous insufficiency, a blood circulation issue, after noticing “mild swelling in his lower legs,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt revealed Thursday. Leavitt made the surprise disclosure while addressing conjecture about recent bruising on Trump’s hands, which she said was assessed to be “minor soft tissue irritation from frequent handshaking and the use of aspirin” as a preventative heart-health measure. “In the effort of transparency, the president wanted me to share a note from his physician with all of you today,” Leavitt said. “In recent weeks, President Trump noted mild swelling in his...

The method, pioneered by UK scientists, combines the egg and sperm from a mum and dad with a second egg from a donor woman. Children born through the three-person technique inherit most of their DNA, their genetic blueprint, from their parents, but also get a tiny amount, about 0.1%, from the second woman. This is a change that is passed down the generations. About one in 5,000 babies are born with mitochondrial disease. The team in Newcastle anticipate there is demand for 20 to 30 babies born through the three-person method each year. Some parents have faced the agony of...

A Monday poll by Data for Progress gives new insight into the 2025 New York City mayoral election as the field of candidates for the November general election remains in flux. The Data for Progress poll shows Queens Assembly Member Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic primary winner, leading the field with 40% of polled individuals marking the 33-year-old as their top choice for mayor. Former Governor Andrew Cuomo, who appears to be nearing a decision on an independent campaign after losing to Mamdani and is expected to commit to the race in the coming days, is polling in second place with...

Astronomers using the Gemini North telescope at NSF’s International Gemini Observatory have captured 3I/ATLAS as it makes its temporary passage through our cosmic neighborhood ============================================================== This image from the Multi-Object Spectrograph (GMOS-N) at the Gemini North telescope shows the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS. Image credit: International Gemini Observatory / NOIRLab / NSF / AURA / K. Meech, IfA & U. Hawaii / Jen Miller & Mahdi Zamani, NOIRLab. Interstellar objects are objects that originate outside of, and are observed passing through, our Solar System. Ranging from tens of meters to a few kilometers in size, these objects are pieces of cosmic...

There are several reasons why Jerome Powell should be fired or forced to resign:Powell pretends he cares about budget deficits and inflation, but the cost for the Federal Reserve building renovations surged $700 million past the initial budget, or almost 40%:The Federal Reserve has defended itself from White House criticism that ongoing, costly renovations at the central bank’s headquarters in Washington are the result of mismanagement.Last week, Russel Vought, the director of the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, said the Fed was turning its headquarters into a ‘palace.’ The cost of the renovation has risen to $2.5 billion,...

While headlines chase shadows and social media churns with conspiracies about Jeffrey Epstein, something far more serious—yet underreported—is unfolding: America just ran a budget surplus in June.That’s right — the U.S. government, long buried under record-breaking deficits, posted a $27 billion surplus, the first for that month in eight years. And it wasn’t a fluke. It was driven largely by one policy move: tariffs.Back in April, critics warned that Donald Trump’s newly announced “Liberation Day” tariffs would tank the economy.Instead, those tariffs have proven to be a financial engine.Trump invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to declare a...

The developers behind the FFmpeg project are again claiming major performance uplifts delivered by wielding the art of handwritten assembly code. With the latest patch applied, users should see a “100x speedup” in the cross-platform open-source media transcoding application. However, the developers were soon to clarify that the 100x claim applies to just a single function, “not the whole of FFmpeg.”BREAKING: FFmpeg 100x speedup from handwritten assembly13:55:30 <•haasn> rangedetect8_avx512: 121.2 (100.18x) that may be the biggest speedup I've seen so farJuly 16, 2025“The biggest speedup I've seen so far”Last November, we reported on an FFmpeg performance boost that could speed...

CBS News Capitol Hill correspondent Scott MacFarlane told podcaster Chuck Todd on Wednesday about how traumatized he was by Trump rallygoers blaming the media for the assassination attempt against President Donald Trump in 2024. MacFarlane said he had personal trauma from the crowd’s immediate rage in response. "For those of us there, it was such a horror because you saw an emerging America," MacFarlane told Todd on his podcast. "And it wasn't the shooting, Chuck. This was – I got diagnosed with PTSD within 48 hours. I got put on trauma leave, not because, I think, of the shooting, but...