News Atlas

GuardianOct 2Preview

SpaceX flight led by first Black female commander sets US speed record

Four astronauts pulled up at International Space Station after eight-hour express flight led by Jessica WatkinsFour astronauts pulled up at the International Space Station on Thursday after launching on an eight-hour express that set a US speed record, and that created further history with the first Black woman to lead a crew to orbit.SpaceX launched commander Jessica Watkins and her crew for Nasa after a three-week delay to fix their Dragon capsule’s leaking fuel system. Thick clouds threatened all morning to halt the countdown but in the end, the skies cleared enough to allow for a safe liftoff. Continue reading...

Associated PressSpaceXInternational Space Station

NYTOct 1Preview

When White People Like Hannah Gann Pretend to Be Black

Rachel Dolezal is now a type.

John McWhorterBlack PeopleRace and Ethnicity

NYTOct 1Preview

Swiss Glaciers Vanished by Nearly a Fifth in Recent Years, Scientists Say

One researcher called it a “desperately needed warning sign” that countries need to tackle human-driven climate change.

Amelia NierenbergSwitzerlandGlaciers

GuardianOct 1Preview

Daredevil Jaan Roose completes slackline walk high above central Seoul

Estonian completed first of two attempts to navigate narrow ribbon, 160 metres long and 120 metres high, near the city’s famous Gyeongbokgung palace on ThursdayThe lunchtime crowds drifted slowly back to their offices along central Seoul’s main boulevard, heads up and phones raised to the sky.High above, a narrow ribbon ran between the Koreana hotel and the Dong-A Media Center, a few hundred metres from the capital’s famous Gyeongbokgung palace and Gwanghwamun square. Continue reading...

Raphael Rashid in SeoulSouth KoreaAsia Pacific

GuardianOct 1Preview

‘Explosion of melt rates’: 20% of Swiss glaciers lost in five years

Alpine regions in Europe experiencing extreme glacier collapse due to heat-trapping effects of fossil fuel pollutionSwitzerland has lost almost one-fifth of its ice in just five years, research has found, in a dramatic reshaping of the Alpine country whose big white glaciers have been reduced to moonlike rock deserts, scientists say.Swiss glaciers shrank by 5.5% in the first eight months of 2026, according to an annual monitoring report, after a summer of scorching heatwaves that followed a winter with little snow. The reduction in ice volume falls just shy of the record set in 2022 and brings the total loss of glacier ice since 2021 to 19.4%. Continue reading...

Ajit NiranjanGlaciersSwitzerland

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