The Brooklyn Nets and Kyrie Irving will each donate $500,000 “toward causes and organizations that work to eradicate hate and intolerance in our communities,” they announced in a joint statement with the Anti-Defamation League on Wednesday.
“The Nets and Kyrie Irving will work with ADL (the Anti-Defamation League), a nonprofit organization devoted to fighting antisemitism and all types of hate that undermine justice and fair treatment for every individual,” the joint statement said. “This is an effort to develop educational programming that is inclusive and will comprehensively combat all forms of antisemitism and bigotry.”
The statement came in the wake of a social media post from Irving last week that promoted a film that features antisemitic tropes. Irving’s post has since been condemned by Nets owner Joe Tsai, and the NBA responded by issuing a statement decrying hate speech.
As part of Wednesday’s joint statement, Irving said he opposes “all forms of hatred and oppression and stand strong with communities that are marginalized and impacted every day.”
“I am aware of the negative impact of my post towards the Jewish community and I take responsibility,” Irving said in the joint statement. “I do not believe everything said in the documentary was true or reflects my morals and principles. I am a human being learning from all walks of life and I intend to do so with an open mind and a willingness to listen. So from my family and I, we meant no harm to any one group, race or religion of people, and wish to only be a beacon of truth and light.”
Irving hadn’t spoken since Saturday, when he defended his post, saying he didn’t believe he did anything wrong in promoting the film. He didn’t talk to reporters after either of the Nets’ games since.
“There is no room for antisemitism, racism, false narratives or misguided attempts to create animosity and hate,” said Sam Zussman, the CEO of BSE Global, parent company of the Nets and Barclays Center. “Now, more than ever, there is a pressing need to ensure education in these areas. We are putting our prior statements into practice because actions speak louder than words.”
Content warning: this article contains references to rape and sexual assault.
On Oct. 7, a woman was dragged from her office and raped in a university building.
On Oct. 8, Stanford students received an email entitled “Update on assault report”.
As I read this email, I felt a growing and implacable sense of discomfort. Here are a few extracts from the email:
“First and foremost, DPS is actively investigating yesterday’s report, based on the limited information that is available thus far.”
“Because of the limited information currently available –”
“Second, the nature of these crime alerts can often be unclear to our community.”
“The initial report to DPS may include very little information.”
“This is why some alerts to the community, in turn, may have very little information.”
“Currently, the victim who reported being assaulted yesterday has chosen not to share information about the crime with the police at this time. This also remains the case for the August report, which remains under investigation.”
“We encourage victims of sexual violence to come forward so that law enforcement and the university can assist.”
After reading the entire email, despite my discomfort, I thought to myself, “Okay, so that’s why the university is unable to do anything.” Unable to do anything about this terrifying and extremely traumatic event. Unable to do anything about a horrifyingly similar assault case on Aug. 9.
When some of my female friends mentioned that they were feeling similar discomfort about the email, I realized that my reaction is exactly what Stanford wanted out of its students. By repeatedly emphasizing that the University simply does not have enough information to carry out any sort of justice or reforms, they place the onus onto the victim. Victims, come forward so that we can help you. Otherwise, our hands are tied.
I can’t overstate how insidious and incorrect this narrative is. There are so many essential actions that Stanford could take, but chooses to avoid. Instead, Stanford is a university that chooses to retain Vincent Barletta, a tenured associated professor who sexually assaulted and harassed his students. He has three TItle IX cases filed against him – incredibly brave victims of sexual violence coming forward. Stanford is a university that chose to name a library in honor of another rapist professor, Jay Fliegelman, despite acknowledging that he sexually harassed his student. Stanford is a university that chose to expel only twostudents for sexual assault in its entire history.
I have several friends who were victims of sexual violence at Stanford and did not take their cases to Title IX. They do not trust a process that is ostensibly slow, obscure, and prolongs survivors’ trauma instead of fighting for their safety. 71% of undergraduate women and 81% of transgender and gender nonconforming students believe that Stanford officials would not conduct a fair investigation if someone were to report a sexual assault at Stanford. This is a colossal institutional failure.
Despite these continual failures, Stanford chooses to shirk blame and silence our anger. Last year, ResEd removed posters protesting Stanford’s systemic failures in addressing sexual violence, calling the posters “terribly harmful to members of our community” and “antithetical to the type of supportive environment we are trying to cultivate and sustain at Stanford”. Do you know what is terribly harmful to members of our community, Stanford? Do you know what is antithetical to a supportive environment? Your failure to address the fact that rape happens here. Your inaction. Your silencing.
“As we always do, we recommend taking steps to provide for your personal safety. Be aware of your surroundings; carry a cell phone to connect quickly with 911 if you are concerned about a situation, or use one of the blue emergency towers placed around campus to do so”
After we read the August crime alert, my friends and I immediately ordered pepper spray. We knew that it was up to ourselves to protect ourselves. In class, keychains thrown casually on desks feature pom poms, trinkets, and self-defense weapons. This should not have to be our campus norm.
Even if we choose to take Stanford’s word that they are essentially unable to investigate the recent assaults, Stanford’s hands are not tied. Here are several easy measures that Stanford could take without delay to protect students:
– Publicizing self-defense classes and reinstating evidence-based programs against sexual violence
– Building more blue boxes which must be consistently functional. One out of order is too many.
– Strongly lighting all areas of campus from sunset to dawn
– Funding the Confidential Support Team
– Consulting with survivors and sexual violence experts to rethink Stanford’s Title IX processes
– Instituting comprehensive consent education in mandatory curriculum
This is so cheap, Stanford. This is so cheap. Even instituting just one of these measures could help prevent another person’s life from being permanently scarred.
The “Safety Recommendations” that Stanford does offer us, from the original crime alert:
“We are all responsible for each other in addition to ourselves.”
My friends and I should not have to keep each other on call as we bike home at night through Stanford’s campus. We should not have to have our thumbs on the trigger of pepper spray while walking home from a party. Stanford “endeavors to promote a culture of community accountability” to paper over their continuous, willful, and systemic failures to protect members of the Stanford community.
“Upstanders have the power [to] stop assaults and to get help for people who have been victimized.”
Stanford has the power to stop assaults and to get help for people who have been victimized. Stanford could make steps towards this direction, but instead pushes responsibility onto students and community members to both “stop assault” and help victims. In many cases, there is no way for any individual, let alone an untrained individual, to do either of these things. Stanford is trained. Stanford has so many resources. Where is Stanford in this statement?
When will Stanford choose to step up and stop forcing the onus onto survivors and students? When will Stanford choose our safety over its self-protection? When will survivors be heard? When will we finally feel safe on your campus, Stanford? When will you finally take accountability? When will you finally take action?
SULAIMANIYA, Iraq, July 20 (Reuters) – Iraq’s government will call back the Iraqi charge d’affaires in Turkey for consultation after accusing Ankara of carrying out a strike on a mountain resort in the northern province of Dohuk, the state news agency INA reported. read more
Turkey rebutted claims by Iraq that it had carried out a strike that killed eight tourists and wounded another 23 people, saying the attack was a terror act.
The “fierce artillery bombing” hit a resort in Zakho, a city on the border between Iraq’s Kurdistan region and Turkey, Iraq state TV said.
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Iraq’s Cabinet also directed the foreign ministry to summon the Turkish envoy in Baghdad to protest against the attack. read more
“The Turkish forces committed blatant violation of the sovereignty of Iraq,” Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi wrote on Twitter. President Barham Salih also condemned the attack.
The United States said it strongly backed Iraq’s sovereignty.
“The killing of civilians is unacceptable, and all states must respect their obligations under international law, including the protection of civilians,” State Department spokesperson Ned Price said.
Children were amongst the victims, including a 1-year-old, the Kurdish health minister said in a statement, adding that all the victims died before reaching a hospital.
“We go towards the mountainside, there are strikes. We go towards the waterfall, there are strikes. We go towards this side, there are strikes,” said Mustafa Alaa, 24, who was at the resort with a friend when the attack occurred.
“We pulled up the fence that was around the waterfall. We looked from inside, I saw children lying on the ground. … It’s a scene that I’ve never seen in my life,” Alaa added.
Turkey’s foreign ministry said Ankara was saddened to hear of the casualties in the attack, and added that Turkey took maximum care to avoid civilian casualties or damaging historic, cultural sites in its counter-terrorism operations against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militia and others.
“Turkey is ready to take every step for the truth to come out,” the ministry said in a statement, adding that Turkish military operations were in line with international laws.
“We call on the Iraqi government to not make remarks influenced by the heinous terrorist organisation’s rhetoric and propaganda, and to engage in cooperation to uncover the perpetrators of this cruel act,” it said, referring to the PKK.
Turkey regularly carries out air strikes in northern Iraq and has sent commandos to support its offensives as part of a long-running campaign in Iraq and Syria against militants of the Kurdish PKK and the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia. Ankara regards both as terrorist groups.
The PKK took up arms against the Turkish state in 1984.
More than 40,000 people have been killed in the conflict, which in the past was mainly focused in southeast Turkey where the PKK sought to create an ethnic homeland.
Dozens of Iraqis gathered outside the Turkish Embassy in Baghdad to protest the attack. The top United Nations envoy to Iraq also condemned it in a statement published on Twitter and called for an investigation.
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Reporting by Ali Sultan in Sulaimaniya, Kawa Omar in Zakho and Yasmin Hussein in Cairo; Additional reporting by Thaier Al-Sudani in Baghdad, Tuvan Gumrukcu and Ece Toksabay in Ankara and Costas Pitas in Los Angeles; Writing by Amina Ismail; Editing by Frank Jack Daniel, Andrew Cawthorne, Leslie Adler and Jonathan Oatis
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
A readout of that conversation, which took place on January 11, 2021, had been previously reported by CNN. But two New York Times reporters obtained an audio recording of the conference call for their upcoming book, “This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden and the Battle for America’s Future,” and shared it with CNN.
“But let me be very clear to you and I have been very clear to the President. He bears responsibility for his words and actions. No if, ands or buts,” McCarthy told House Republicans on January 11, 2021, according to the audio obtained by CNN. “I asked him personally today, does he hold responsibility for what happened? Does he feel bad about what happened? He told me he does have some responsibility for what happened. And he needs to acknowledge that.”
On a separate call the day before, McCarthy said, “I had it with this guy. What he did is unacceptable. Nobody can defend that, and nobody should defend it.” The book’s authors say those comments were in reference to Trump.
CNN has reached out to McCarthy for comment.
The Times reporters also revealed another bombshell recording this week, in which McCarthy is heard telling other House Republican leaders in the days after January 6 that he planned to advise Trump that he should resign. McCarthy and his aides had vehemently denied that reporting before the audio was leaked.
A GOP member of leadership who called McCarthy this morning to discuss the audio file revealed by The New York Times on Thursday night said they didn’t get the impression McCarthy is worried that the recorded comments or revelations could hurt his political future in a significant way. The member told CNN that McCarthy told them Trump called McCarthy on Thursday night to discuss this and that there is a feeling as long as Trump is fine, McCarthy can manage any outrage from those on his right flank.
The member emphasized that it’s hard to argue McCarthy isn’t Trumpy enough if Trump is still with him.
“He doesn’t seem to be worried about” it, the member said of McCarthy. “He gets it needs to be addressed, but I don’t get the sense he’s worried about it.
The source also defended McCarthy and told CNN that on the days after January 6, there had been a fog about what would happen next. The member said there was a lot of talk that Republican senators would back removing Trump from office and their take was that McCarthy’s entertaining asking Trump to resign was coming from McCarthy trying to protect Trump from the disgrace of impeachment.
“My read on listening to that audio is McCarthy had some info that some top senators were contemplating impeaching the President … we were basically talking through the different options of what might happen,” the person said.
McCarthy has declined to cooperate with the House January 6 committee, which wants to question him about his communications with Trump, White House staff and others in the week after the insurrection. McCarthy has said he has nothing relevant to offer the panel since he’s already publicly revealed he had a phone call with Trump on January 6.
McCarthy made similar public comments in a little-noticed local radio interview one week after the insurrection, which CNN reported on earlier this year.
“I say he has responsibility,” McCarthy said on KERN, a local radio station in Bakersfield, California, on January 12 of last year. “He told me personally that he does have some responsibility. I think a lot of people do.”
Earlier this year, McCarthy evaded a question during a news conference about whether he remembers telling House Republicans that Trump took responsibility for the Capitol riot.
To date, Trump has never publicly accepted any responsibility for the attack. Trump’s state of mind — and whether he has privately admitted any culpability for the insurrection — has been of keen interest to the House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack.
The select committee also wants to know why McCarthy has since changed his tune on Trump, and whether Trump or any of his associates asked McCarthy to change his tone about the President’s role in the attack and their private conversations.
This story has been updated with additional developments Friday.
Separatist graffiti is seen on a road near Pattani June 6, 2014, one of three southernmost provinces of Thailand where government troops have fought Muslim insurgents since 2004. Graffiti reads “Hey Siamese – bring back our rights” REUTERS/Andrew RC Marshall
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BANGKOK, April 16 (Reuters) – Thai rebels sidelined from peace talks claimed responsibility on Saturday for deadly bombings in the country’s Muslim-majority deep south that broke a Ramadan holiday agreed between the main rebel group and the government.
The two explosions on Friday, which killed a civilian and injured three policemen, were carried out by “G5”, a militant group of the Patani United Liberation Organisation (PULO), its president, Kasturi Mahkota, told Reuters.
More than 7,300 people have been killed since 2004 in the fighting between the government and shadowy groups seeking independence for the Malay-Muslim provinces of Narathiwat, Yala, Pattani and parts of Songkhla. The area was part of the Patani sultanate that Thailand annexed in a 1909 treaty with Britain.
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Mahkota said by telephone the blasts in Pattani province represent “business as usual” for PULO, left out of the talks between the government and the Barisan Revolusi Nasional (BRN), which agreed two weeks ago to stop violence during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan through May 14. read more
A spokesman for the Thai security forces in the south, Colonel Kiatisak Neewong, said without naming PULO that a group not included in the peace talks were likely responsible for bombings aimed at disrupting the Ramadan truce.
The Thai team at the peace talks and the BRN declined to comment.
“The talks are not inclusive enough and it is going too fast,” said Kasturi, whose group objects to the agreement that would exclude the possibility of independence from Buddhist-majority Thailand.
The talks seek a political solution to the decades-long conflict under the framework of the Thai constitution. Talks have been frequently disrupted since beginning in 2013. The latest round started in 2019.
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Reporting by Panu Wongcha-um in Bangkok; Editing by William Mallard
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Alec Baldwin filed legal papers Friday denying any responsibility for shooting dead Halyna Hutchins — even blaming the late cinematographer for giving him the directions that led to the deadly accident.
The 63-year-old actor insisted that every single mistake leading to the Oct. 21 shooting on the New Mexico set of “Rust” was “performed by someone else.”
His filing Friday also revealed that Baldwin made an “exhaustive effort” to get the crew back together to finish the doomed movie even after a flurry of lawsuits blamed him for mom-of-one Hutchins’ death.
“This is a rare instance when the system broke down, and someone should be held legally culpable for the tragic consequences,” the star’s lawyer, Luke Nikas, wrote in an arbitration filing Friday shared by Deadline.
“That person is not Alec Baldwin,” said the filing, adding that he is just “an actor.”
The arbitration demand against Baldwin’s fellow producers claims the star’s contract protects him from any financial responsibility in a slew of lawsuits filed against him, including the wrongful death complaint filed by Hutchins’ widow.
Even without that clause, Baldwin was completely innocent in the “unthinkable tragedy,” according to the filing, which revealed he was paid $250,000 to star in and produce the low-budget western.
Alec Baldwin filed legal papers March 11, 2022, denying any responsibility for shooting dead Halyna Hutchins. Jeff Neira/ABC via Getty Images
“As he had done throughout his career, Baldwin trusted the other professionals on the set to do their jobs,” Nikas wrote.
“The facts make clear that Baldwin is not culpable for these events or failures.”
Those whose directions Baldwin followed included Hutchins herself, the filing stated, calling it “the worst day in Alec Baldwin’s life” that “will continue to haunt” him.
Halyna Hutchins was killed when a gun held by Baldwin fired a live round. Fred Hayes/Getty Images for SAGindie
Hutchins “directed Baldwin” in the rehearsal scene to “determine how best to angle the camera and what movements Baldwin should make for her to capture the cocked gun that the script had called for,” it said.
“Hutchins described what she would like Baldwin to do with the placement of the gun … She directed Baldwin to hold the gun higher, to a point where it was directed toward her,” the filing detailed.
“In giving and following these instructions, Hutchins and Baldwin shared a core, vital belief: that the gun was ‘cold’ and contained no live rounds.
“Baldwin asked Hutchins whether she wanted to see him cock the gun, as the script required. She responded yes,” the filing stated.
On her instructions, “Baldwin then pulled back the hammer, but not far enough to actually cock the gun.
“When Baldwin let go of the hammer, the gun went off,” the filing noted.
“As later became known, a live bullet discharged from the gun and struck Hutchins, traveling through her body and striking [director Joel] Souza in the shoulder. Both Hutchins and Souza fell to the ground,” it said.
“No one understood what had happened,” the filing stated of the “panic and confusion” immediately after.
It was only when Baldwin was interviewed by Santa Fe sheriff’s deputies that he saw “a photograph of the object that had just been removed from Souza’s shoulder at the hospital — a .45 caliber slug.
“Baldwin recognized the object as a live bullet, and he finally began to comprehend what had transpired on the set of ‘Rust’ that day,” the filing stated, saying the actor was “shocked.”
Halyna Hutchins and Alec Baldwin are seen on the set of “Rust,” just before the shooting.Sergey SvetnoyBaldwin’s filing blames Hutchins for giving him the directions that led to the deadly accident.AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File
But the star took no responsibility for failing to double-check that the gun had no live bullets in it — claiming rookie armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed ordered him not to, saying “it was her job to check the gun — not his.”
“An actor cannot rule that a gun is safe,” the filing said. “That is the responsibility of other people on the set.”
The filing also detailed Baldwin’s initial communications with Hutchins’ widow, Matthew, who allegedly hugged the star and told him, “I guess we’re going to go through this together.”
It included screenshots of text messages showing the pair’s “warm” relationship, with Matthew telling Baldwin he was “very gracious” helping him and his 9-year-old son, Andros.
Baldwin repeatedly said he understood if Matthew wanted to cut ties, but the widower “continuously assured” him he “wished to keep in touch and maintain their … positive and mutually supportive” relationship.
As well as that friendship, Baldwin made an exhaustive effort to contact the Rust cast in the hope of acquiring their support to finish the film,” the filing revealed, admitting no one wanted to.
“He did so both with the intent of honoring Halyna’s legacy by completing her last work and of compensating Hutchins and his son from the film’s profits.”
Baldwin insisted his warm messages continued weeks after his now-notorious TV interview in which he claimed he had not fired the fatal shot, the filing said.
Cast and crewmembers on the set of Rust.Josh Hopkins/InstagramHutchins’ family is suing Baldwin. Jack Caswell via AP
The actor was completely taken aback when the widower gave his own TV interview saying he was “just so angry” at Baldwin’s “absurd” claims.
“The Matthew Hutchins that showed up on the Today show is someone Baldwin had never met before,” Friday’s filing claimed.
Matthew is one of many who have sued Baldwin over the fatal incident, saying he “recklessly shot and killed Halyna Hutchins on the set.”
But his “lawsuit contains numerous false allegations against Baldwin,” the “30 Rock” actor’s lawyer stated.
“Plans to complete Rust and to channel its proceeds into a fund for Hutchins’s and his son’s benefit have unfortunately broken down as a result of the lawsuit and these public statements,” the filing said.
Some of the others suing him were also initially supportive, according to the filing.
That included script supervisor Mamie Mitchell, who now blames Baldwin for not checking the gun — but immediately after the shooting told him, “You realize you’re not responsible for any of what happened in there, don’t you?,” the filing alleged.
The filing listed a series of mishaps possibly to blame for the fatal accident, none of which were Baldwin’s responsibility, according to his lawyer.
“He didn’t announce that the gun was ‘cold’ when it really contained a live round; he didn’t load the gun; he didn’t check the bullets in the gun; he didn’t purchase the bullets; he didn’t make the bullets and represent that they were dummies; he wasn’t in charge of firearm safety on the set; he didn’t hire the people who supplied the bullets or checked the gun; and he played no role in managing the movie’s props,” the filing said.
“At this point, two things are clear: someone is culpable for cambering the live round that led to this horrific tragedy, and it is someone other than Baldwin,” the filing said. “Baldwin is an actor.”
AN OUT-OF-CONTROL rocket part the size of a school bus has likely smashed into the Moon’s surface by now.
According to astronomers, a rocket booster was set to hit the lunar surface at around 7.25am ET (12:25 GMT) after spending nearly eight years tumbling through space.
It was likely the first time a manmade object has crashed into another space body without being aimed there, but we won’t know that it hit the Moon for sure until two satellites that orbit the Moon pass over the possible impact site and photograph any crater that resulted from the collision, the BBC reported.
The rocket part was first spotted by Bill Gray, who writes the popular Project Pluto software to track near-Earth objects.
He reported that the junk was a SpaceX Falcon 9 upper stage launched from Florida by Elon Musk’s team in February 2015.
However, Bill later retracted his claim and said the rocket part most likely belonged to China. China has since denied the accusation.
Read our rocket moon crash live blog for the latest news and updates…
When will we get images of the crash?
The only way toknow exactly where the rocket hits is through images, which could be in a few weeks… or even months.
NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter was not in a position to observe the impact as it happened, the agency said.
Impact won’t be visible
The rocket part was xpected to hit the Moon on March 4, where it will leave a crater about 65 feet in diameter on the surface but unfortunately, it won’t be possible to see the impact live as the tumbling rocket part is expected to hit the Moon’s far side – the part that faces away from Earth.
Instead, astronomers will rely on images taken by satellites including Nasa’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter to view what happens after the collision.
Primary moon phases
Out of the eight moon phases, only four of them are considered primary (Full, First, New, Third).
Each of the four primary phases lasts for about a week, making the full moon cycle last for approximately a month.
What are the moon phases?
There are eight moon phases:
Full Moon
Waxing Gibbous
First Quarter
Waxing Crescent
New Moon
Waning Crescent
Third Quarter
Waning Gibbous
Explained: How the Moon was created
The giant-impact theory is the widely most accepted today.
It proposes that the Moon formed during a collision between the Earth and another small planet, about the size of Mars.
The debris from this impact collected in an orbit around Earth to form the Moon.
What else has crashed into the Moon, part three
The US space agency has also been responsible for crashing items into the Moon.
For example, Apollo 10 dropped half of its Snoopy module onto the Moon in May 1969.
Nasa also intentionally crashed its LCROSS mission into the Moon in 2009.
Thankfully, it is unlikely the Moon has suffered too much from all these crashes, but it does have a few more craters as a result fo the collisions.
What else has crashed into the Moon, continued
Every Moon mission comes with the risk of crashing something into the Moon, and that exact thing happened with India’s Chandrayaan-2 Moon lander, also called Vikram.
The lander lost communication with Earth and crashed into the lunar surface in September 2019 even though it was supposed to descend gently onto the Moon’s south pole.
However, it crash-landed by accident.
What else has crashed into the Moon?
The Moon has been the victim of multiple space debris crashes over time.
The Soviet Union’s Luna 2 is thought to be the first manmade spacecraft to crash into the Moon, for instance.
This happened in 1959, eight months after the failed mission of Luna 1.
Luna 1 was supposed to reach the Moon but missed, and it is still floating around in space somewhere.
Moon crash confusion
People on social media were confused on Friday about the rocket part, and whether it had actually crashed on the moon or not.
“Anyone know if the #moon crash has happened?” one person wrote.
“Doesn’t something crash into the moon today?? 🌝🤔” another person tweeted.
Anyone know if the #moon crash has happened?
— Gren-Hilda Duval (@Grenhilda) March 4, 2022
NASA prepared for ‘unique event’
NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter monitored the moon’s exosphere for any changes as a result of the impact of the rocket booster to the moon, Space.com reported.
LRO “will not be in a position to observe the impact as it happens. However, the mission team is assessing if observations can be made to any changes to the lunar environment associated with the impact and later identify the crater formed by the impact,” NASA officials said in a statement given to Inside Outer Space and cited by Space.com
“This unique event presents an exciting research opportunity,” the officials added.
“Following the impact, the mission can use its cameras to identify the impact site, comparing older images to images taken after the impact. The search for the impact crater will be challenging and might take weeks to months.”
Crater won’t be the first on the Moon
If the rocket booster creates a crater on the Moon from the impact, it won’t be the only crater on the Moon, CNN noted.
The Moon has no protective atmosphere, so impact craters occur naturally when it’s hit by objects like asteroids regularly.
What time did the rocket hit?
Experts claim the incident occurred at 7.25am EST on the lunar far side, out of reach of ground-based observatories.
Where did the rocket hit?
The collision likely occurred on the far side of the Moon on Friday.
The one-tonne hunk of space junk was previously traveling at around 2.6 km per second.
Rocket body company, continued
Bill Gray, the manager of Project Pluto, which provides both commercial and free astronomy software to amateur and professional astronomers, is one of the persons who has made the China link, per Space.com.
“There really is no good reason at this point to think the object is anything other than the Chang’e 5-T1 booster,” Gray told Inside Outer Space last month.
“Anybody claiming otherwise has a pretty large hill of evidence to overcome.”
What company does the rocket body belong to?
The top stage of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that launched the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) in 2015 was first considered to be the rocket body.
The object, however, is now linked to China’s Long March 3C rocket, which launched China’s Chang’e 5-T1 mission in 2014, according to Space.com.
Chang’e 5-T1 circled beyond the moon and returned to Earth to test the Chang’e 5 lunar sample return mission’s atmospheric re-entry capabilities in 2020.
On behalf of the Luxembourg-based business LuxSpace, Chang’e 5-T1 carried a secondary payload of scientific equipment in the upper stage of the Long March rocket.
Who predicted the collision, continued
“Back in 2015, I (mis)identified this object as 2015-007B, the second stage of the DSCOVR spacecraft,” Gray wrote on February 12.
“We now have good evidence that it is actually 2014-065B, the booster for the Chang’e 5-T1 lunar mission.”
Who predicted the collision?
In January, space trackers calculated that a piece of manmade debris was on course to hit the Moon and it was first spotted by Bill Gray, who writes the popular Project Pluto software to track near-Earth objects.
He reported that the junk was a SpaceX Falcon 9 upper stage launched from Florida in February 2015.
It was on a mission to deploy an Earth observation satellite called DSCOVR for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
However, Gray later retracted his claim and said the rocket part most likely belonged to China, and China has since denied the accusation.
How to send your name around the moon
You need to go to Nasa’s official website for the Artemis mission.
That’s available here.
You need to enter your name and a custom PIN, which will generate your boarding pass.
The PIN needs to be 4 to 7 digits.
Remember the PIN, as this will allow you access your boarding pass in the future.
Will photos be taken of the crash site?
Once the dust has settled, Nasa’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter will move into position to snap images of whatever’s left behind.
These images could prove crucial to scientists hoping to get a better understanding of space collisions.
They could also help to determine once and for all the origins of the rocket by studying whatever manmade debris is left behind.
What if someone died on a longer space trip?
More problems arise for longer missions.
Experts Christopher Newman and Nick Caplan wrote in The Conversation that they think a dead body on a year-long trip to Mars would need to be frozen, perhaps toward the outside of the spacecraft, in order to bring it back to Earth safely.
This could also reduce a dead body’s weight and save space in the craft.
The space researchers also suggest that as we colonize space, bodies may have to be disposed of rather than preserved.
Burials would contaminate planets, but catapulting bodies into the abyss of space would lead to moral and space debris issues.
What would happen if someone dies on a space trip?
If someone were to die during a space tourism flight, it could land the specific company in legal trouble and an investigation into the duty of care.
Legal concerns would be the least of the crews worries though as they’d need to work out what to do with the body.
If it’s a short spaceflight, it would be easy enough to store the body and bring it back to Earth.
According to space experts Christopher Newman and Nick Caplan, the body would need to be kept cool to prevent decomposition and stored somewhere that wouldn’t contaminate the other crew members.
Has anyone died in space?
Around 30 astronauts and cosmonauts have died while attempting space missions.
Seven astronauts died when Nasa’s Challenger space shuttle exploded shortly after launch in 1986.
A further seven astronauts died when Nasa’s Columbia shuttle broke up when it returned to Earth in 2003.
These tragic events were shocking and killed all crew members on board.
No spaceflight has been able to teach us what would happen if one crew member dies during a mission while everyone else is alive and fit enough to continue.
First unintentional crash
Without including the probes that have crashed while attempting to land on the moon, this was the first known inadvertent lunar collision involving a piece of space gear.
European Space Agency commented
The European Space Agency commented on the upcoming collision of the rocket booster and the Moon’s surface.
“This still-evolving finding underscores the need for enhanced space tracking, and greater data sharing between spacecraft operators, launch providers, and the astronomy and space surveillance communities,” the agency wrote.
Did SpaceX respond?
The SpaceX Twitter account doesn’t show any sort of recent response to the accusations that the rocket booster belonged to the company.
In fact, the rocket part most likely belonged to China, not Elon Musk’s company.
AN OUT-OF-CONTROL rocket part the size of a school bus has likely smashed into the Moon’s surface by now.
According to astronomers, a rocket booster was set to hit the lunar surface at around 7.25am ET (12:25 GMT) after spending nearly eight years tumbling through space.
It was likely the first time a manmade object has crashed into another space body without being aimed there, but we won’t know that it hit the Moon for sure until two satellites that orbit the Moon pass over the possible impact site and photograph any crater that resulted from the collision, the BBC reported.
The rocket part was first spotted by Bill Gray, who writes the popular Project Pluto software to track near-Earth objects.
He reported that the junk was a SpaceX Falcon 9 upper stage launched from Florida by Elon Musk’s team in February 2015.
However, Bill later retracted his claim and said the rocket part most likely belonged to China. China has since denied the accusation.
Read our rocket moon crash live blog for the latest news and updates…
Crater won’t be the first on the Moon
If the rocket booster creates a crater on the Moon from the impact, it won’t be the only crater on the Moon, CNN noted.
The Moon has no protective atmosphere, so impact craters occur naturally when it’s hit by objects like asteroids regularly.
Collision won’t be ‘observable’
“If it were observable — which, sadly, it won’t be — you would see a big flash, and dust and disintegrated rocket bits and pebbles and boulders thrown out, some of it for hundreds of kilometers,” Bill Gray told CNN of the rocket booster and its imminent collision with the Moon.
Gray was the first to spot the path of the rocket booster and writes the popular Project Pluto software to track near-Earth objects.
How to send your name around the moon
You need to go to Nasa’s official website for the Artemis mission.
That’s available here.
You need to enter your name and a custom PIN, which will generate your boarding pass.
The PIN needs to be 4 to 7 digits.
Remember the PIN, as this will allow you access your boarding pass in the future.
Exact time of collision
The rocket booster was likely hit the Moon at 12:25:58 Universal Time on March 4, 2022, Forbes reported.
The four-tonne rocket part probably hit the Moon’s surface at a speed of about 5,700 mph.
European Space Agency comments
The European Space Agency commented on the possible collision of the rocket booster and the Moon’s surface before it was set to occur.
“This still-evolving finding underscores the need for enhanced space tracking, and greater data sharing between spacecraft operators, launch providers, and the astronomy and space surveillance communities,” the agency wrote.
Has space junk hit the Moon before?
As part of its LCROSS mission, in 2009 Nasa deliberately smashed a rocket booster into the Moon in hopes of learning something from the debris it left behind.
“In essence, this is a ‘free’ LCROSS… except we probably won’t see the impact,” Bill Gray, who writes the popular Project Pluto software to track near-Earth objects, wrote in January.
Impact won’t be visible
The rocket part was xpected to hit the Moon on March 4, where it will leave a crater about 65 feet in diameter on the surface but unfortunately, it won’t be possible to see the impact live as the tumbling rocket part is expected to hit the Moon’s far side – the part that faces away from Earth.
Instead, astronomers will rely on images taken by satellites including Nasa’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter to view what happens after the collision.
Who predicted the collision, continued
“Back in 2015, I (mis)identified this object as 2015-007B, the second stage of the DSCOVR spacecraft,” Gray wrote on February 12.
“We now have good evidence that it is actually 2014-065B, the booster for the Chang’e 5-T1 lunar mission.”
Who predicted the collision?
In January, space trackers calculated that a piece of manmade debris was on course to hit the Moon and it was first spotted by Bill Gray, who writes the popular Project Pluto software to track near-Earth objects.
He reported that the junk was a SpaceX Falcon 9 upper stage launched from Florida in February 2015.
It was on a mission to deploy an Earth observation satellite called DSCOVR for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
However, Gray later retracted his claim and said the rocket part most likely belonged to China, and China has since denied the accusation.
‘Intrinsic uncertainty’
Professor Jonathan McDowell from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics told BBC News he agrees with Gray’s re-assessment that the rocket part most likely belonged to China instead.
He said there is lots of “intrinsic uncertainty” in identifying space debris and errors in identification can occur.
“We rely on a small handful of volunteers who do it on their own time,” he explained to the BBC.
“So there is limited scope for cross-checking.”
Impact on the Moon
The collision of the rocket booster and the Moon is expected to produce a cloud of debris and leave behind a small crater.
However, no serious damage is expected to occur.
What is the rocket booster?
The object is probably part of a rocket that launched a small Chinese spacecraft, called Chang’e 5-T1, towards the Moon in 2014.
Bill Gray, who writes the popular Project Pluto software to track near-Earth objects, originally reported that the junk was a SpaceX Falcon 9 upper stage launched from Florida in February 2015.
However, Bill later retracted his claim and said the rocket part most likely belonged to China instead.
China has since denied the accusation.
Where did the rocket hit?
The collision likely occurred on the far side of the Moon.
The one-tonne hunk of space junk was previously traveling at around 2.6 km per second.
Craft may hit near crater
The rocket booster may have specifically crashed near a crater called Hertzsprung, according to Forbes.
It’s on the far side of the Moon, so any impact won’t be visible from Earth.
Moon crash confusion
People on social media were confused on Friday about the rocket part, and whether it had actually crashed on the moon or not.
“Anyone know if the #moon crash has happened?” one person wrote.
“Doesn’t something crash into the moon today?? 🌝🤔” another person tweeted.
Anyone know if the #moon crash has happened?
— Gren-Hilda Duval (@Grenhilda) March 4, 2022
Gray advocates for ‘simple steps’
What the confusion over the wayward rocket part shows is that there should be better tracking of deep space junk, Bill Gray, who writes the Project Pluto software to track near-Earth objects, argued.
“Many more spacecraft are now going into high orbits, and some of them will be taking crews to the Moon,” Gray said.
“Such junk will no longer be merely an annoyance to a small group of astronomers.”
“A few fairly simple steps would help quite a bit.”
Does the rocket belong to China?
Last week, China said that the rocket part is NOT theirs.
Bill Gray, who writes the popular Project Pluto software to track near-Earth objects, however, still thinks it’s an old rocket part from a lunar mission dating back to 2014.
His claims have been backed up by Nasa and other experts.
They believe it’s from China’s Chang’e 5-T1 mission, which was used to test technology for bringing samples back from the Moon.
China’s denial
“According to China’s monitoring, the upper stage of the Chang’e-5 mission rocket has fallen through the Earth’s atmosphere in a safe manner and burnt up completely,” Wang Wenbin, a spokesperson for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said of the mystery object on course to hit the Moon.
However, experts noticed that China referred to the Chang’e-5 mission, not the similarly named Chang’e 5-T1 mission at the heart of it.
What is the moon made of, continued
The crust that covers the lunar surface is around 42 miles (70 kilometers) thick on average.
Due to all of the huge hits that the moon has received, the outermost section of the crust is fragmented and jumbled, with the shattered zone giving way to intact material below a depth of around 6 miles (9.6 km).
The lunar surface is around 43 percent oxygen, 20 percent silicon, 19 percent magnesium, 10 percent iron, 3 percent calcium, 3 percent aluminum, 0.42 percent chromium, 0.18 percent titanium, and 0.12 percent manganese by weight.
What is the moon made of?
The moon’s core is most likely quite tiny, accounting for just one to two percent of the moon’s mass and measuring around 420 miles (680 kilometers) in diameter, according to Space.com.
It’s probably primarily iron, although it might also contain a lot of sulfur and other metals.
The moon’s rocky mantle is 825 miles (1,330 kilometers) deep and made up of dense iron and magnesium-rich rocks.
For more than a billion years, magma from the mantle rose to the surface and erupted volcanically, from at least four billion years ago to less than three billion years ago.
The moon doesn’t have an atmosphere
This implies that the Moon’s surface is exposed to cosmic rays, meteorites, and solar winds, and experiences extreme temperature swings.
Because there is no atmosphere on the Moon, no sound can be heard, and the sky is constantly pitch black.
Evidence of crash will be ‘lost’
There is no way to have seen the crash happen in real-time, and we won’t know that it happened for sure until satellites orbiting the Moon send back images of a probable crash site.
The rocket booster part also likely broke into thousands of pieces, the BBC reported.
Therefore, much of the physical evidence of where it came from will be lost as well.
Rocket’s last moments
No one will have seen the rocket part’s last moments in real-time, according to the BBC.
Two satellites that orbit the Moon will eventually provide evidence of the crash after they pass over the likely impact site.
The satellites will then photograph the crater that will probably result from the impact.
Does the moon have quakes?
These are caused by the Earth’s gravitational pull, according to Space-Facts.com.
On their journeys to the Moon, astronauts employed seismographs and discovered that minor moonquakes occurred many kilometers beneath the surface, creating ruptures and fissures.
How old is the moon?
The moon is assumed to have originated as a result of a big object or series of objects colliding with Earth, with part of the material blasting into space and becoming our lunar neighbor.
Scientists investigated old zircon pieces after Apollo astronauts returned lunar rocks for study, they were able to establish that this occurred around 4.5billion years ago.
UAE flag flies over a boat at Dubai Marina, Dubai, United Arab Emirates May 22, 2015. REUTERS/Ahmed Jadallah
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DUBAI, Feb 2 (Reuters) – The United Arab Emirates said it intercepted three drones that entered its airspace over unpopulated areas early on Wednesday in the fourth such attack on the Gulf commercial and tourism hub in the past few weeks.
The first three assaults, including a missile attack on Monday during a visit by Israel’s president, were launched by Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis in an escalation with a military coalition led by Saudi Arabia and which includes the UAE.
The Houthis have not yet announced a new operation and Wednesday’s drones attack was claimed by a little-known group calling itself the “True Promise Brigades”, according to U.S.-based SITE Intelligence Group, which follows jihadist websites.
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The group’s only other claim was in January 2021, when it said it launched a drone at Saudi Arabia, which is locked in several proxy conflicts with rival Iran, including in Yemen.
The UAE defence ministry said it was “ready to deal with any threats” and was taking “all necessary measures” to protect the country which prizes its reputation as a safe business haven.
On Tuesday, the United States said it was sending fighter jets to assist the UAE after the attacks, one of which was aimed at a base hosting U.S forces and followed a Jan. 17 strike that killed three people in Abu Dhabi.
The unprecedented attacks on the U.S.-allied country are an escalation in the seven-year Yemen war. The Houthis had focused cross-border assaults at Saudi Arabia but extended them to the UAE last month after Emirati-backed local forces joined fighting against the group in energy-producing regions.
If confirmed, the claim by the “True Promise Brigade” could indicate an upswing in violence involving militias seeking to help ally Iran oppose Western and Gulf Arab adversaries, according to some analysts.
“If Alwiyat al-Waad al-Haq came out of hibernation and did launch drones at the UAE … then this was likely an Iran-directed or at very least Iran-tolerated operation,” Michael Knights at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy said in a Twitter post, using the group’s Arabic name.
Sunni Muslim Gulf powers have called on global powers trying to salvage a nuclear pact with Iran to also tackle Shi’ite Iran’s regional proxies and missiles programme.
Tehran has not directly commented on the UAE attacks but has called for a political solution to the Yemen crisis.
Iran’s foreign minister discussed Yemen with his Emirati counterpart by telephone on Wednesday.
The UAE largely reduced its military presence in Yemen in 2019 and has been engaging with Tehran under de-escalation efforts largely driven by economic priorities.
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Reporting by Yasmin Hussein and Omar Fahmy; Writing by Saeed Azhar and Ghaida Ghantous; Editing by Lisa Shumaker, Clarence Fernandez and Lincoln Feast.
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
McCarthy shared the details of his conversation with Trump in a little-noticed local radio interview done a week after the insurrection, in which McCarthy said he supported a committee to investigate the attack and supported censuring then-President Trump. While McCarthy made similar comments about supporting censure and a bipartisan commission in other places around the same time, the radio interview — in which McCarthy has harsh words for Trump and strongly condemns the violent attack — provides yet another example of how the California Republican has shifted his tone in the year since the insurrection.
“I say he has responsibility,” McCarthy said on KERN, a local radio station in Bakersfield, California, on January 12 of last year. “He told me personally that he does have some responsibility. I think a lot of people do.”
McCarthy shared a similar account last year with House Republicans during a private conference call a day earlier, according to multiple sources on the call. That call was reported on at the time, but CNN obtained a more detailed readout of the call on Thursday.
“Let me be clear to you and I have been very clear to the President. He bears responsibility for his words and actions. No if ands or buts,” McCarthy told House Republicans on January 11, 2021, according to the readout obtained by CNN from a source listening to the call. “I asked him personally today if he holds responsibility for what happened. If he feels bad about what happened. He told me he does have some responsibility for what happened. But he needs to acknowledge that.”
Trump has never publicly accepted any responsibility for the attack and McCarthy said on Thursday during a press conference he couldn’t remember telling House Republicans last year that Trump took responsibility for the attack.
In the local radio interview, McCarthy said he urged the President throughout a phone call during the Capitol attack to call in the National Guard and go on television to call off the rioters.
“I spoke to the President during the riot,” McCarthy said. “I was the first person to call him. I told him to go on national TV, tell these people to stop it. He said he didn’t know what was happening. We went to the news then to work through that. I asked the president, he has a responsibility. You know what the President does, but you know what? All of us do.”
“I called the President, told him, bring the national guard, go on television,” he added later.
The details of McCarthy’s call with Trump — and whether Trump has ever admitted any culpability for the riots — have been a subject of interest for the House select committee investigating the January 6 riot, saying it’s key to understanding the former President’s state of mind during the Capitol attack and in the weeks after.
McCarthy declined this week to cooperate with the committee, which wants to question him about his communications with Trump, White House staff and others in the week after the January 6 attack. McCarthy says he has nothing relevant to offer the panel since he’s already publicly revealed he had a phone call with Trump on January 6.
The committee also wants to know why McCarthy has since changed his tune, and whether Trump or any of his associates asked McCarthy to change his tone about the President’s role in the attack and their private conversations.
CNN previously reported about an expletive-laced phone call between McCarthy and Trump while the Capitol was under attack on January 6, where Trump said the rioters cared more about the 2020 presidential election results than McCarthy did.
In his radio interview, McCarthy strongly supported censuring Trump as an alternative to impeachment — which he strongly opposed — and said he supported a bipartisan committee to investigate the causes of the attack. McCarthy also said he brought up the idea of censure with House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer.
“What I proposed –which I think history will say, I’m right –because it’s the right thing to do, I believe,” McCarthy said. “Have a bipartisan commission and get all your facts, actually work through the grand jury to find out at the end, instead of predetermining, whether someone’s guilty or not.”
“The one thing about impeachment, why would you run it through so fast? I say let’s put a bipartisan commission, let’s learn all the facts,” he added.
Hoyer confirmed that McCarthy floated censure as an alternative to impeachment but called it a “relatively passing conversation.”
“I didn’t take it as a profound, sort of long, thought-out strategy,” Hoyer said Thursday. “He was looking at options because at that point, he was holding the president responsible.”
On Thursday, McCarthy defended his decision not to cooperate with the select committee despite previously voicing support for a bipartisan commission and also saying he’d cooperate with any investigation. McCarthy said he made those comments before Speaker Nancy Pelosi decided to “play politics” with the select committee by vetoing two picks, Rep. Jim Jordan and Jim Banks.
McCarthy said in the local radio interview that Trump didn’t tell the crowd to attack the Capitol, but still bore responsibility for telling them Vice President Mike Pence could throw out electors. Trump repeatedly raised the notion Pence could delay or obstruct the Electoral College certification.
“Did he tell the crowd to hang him? What he said Mike Pence could do, he could not do,” McCarthy said.
McCarthy also remarked in the interview how the attack seemed planned out, undermining a narrative that has since taken hold in the GOP that the riot was just a spontaneous protest that got out of hand.
“So if you say the speech caused it, these people are already planned for it,” McCarthy said during the radio interview. “People had, had real worked out plan. They scaled walls. They brought ropes.”
CNN’s Jamie Gangel and Ryan Nobles contributed to this story.
