NASA’s beloved Voyager 1 mission is back to normal science operations for the first time in more than six months, according to agency personnel. The announcement was made after NASA received data from all four of the spacecraft’s remaining science instruments.
The venerable spacecraft launched in 1977 and passed into interstellar space in 2012, becoming the first human-made object to accomplish that feat. Today Voyager 1 and its twin, Voyager 2, are NASA’s longest-running missions. But the title has been challenging to hold on to for spacecraft that were designed to operate for just four years. The aging probes are stuck in the deep cold of outer space, their nuclear power sources are producing ever less juice, and glitches are becoming increasingly common.
Most recently, Voyager 1 faced a communications issue that began in November 2023. “We’d gone from having a conversation with Voyager, with the 1’s and 0’s containing science data, to just a dial tone,” said Linda Spilker, Voyager project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), of the spacecraft’s troubles in an interview with Scientific American in March.
After more than six months of long-distance troubleshooting—Voyager 1 is more than 15 billion miles from Earth, and any signal takes more than 22.5 hours to travel from our planet to the spacecraft—mission personnel have finally coaxed Voyager 1 to gather and send home data with all its remaining science instruments, according to a NASA statement...
NASA never gave up on Voyager 1, and it's paid off. Kudos.
The alleged offense was trying to steal a soon-to-be-released copy of former prime minister Tony Blair’s memoir.
The suspect arrested by London police in 2010 was John Ford, a once-aspiring actor who has since admitted to an extensive career using deception and illegal means to obtain confidential information for Britain’s Sunday Times newspaper. Facing potential prosecution, Ford called a journalist he said he had collaborated with repeatedly — and trusted to come to his rescue.
That journalist, according to draft book chapters Ford later wrote recounting his ordeal, was Robert Winnett, a Sunday Times veteran who is set to become editor of The Washington Post later this year.
Winnett moved quickly to connect Ford with a lawyer, discussed obtaining an untraceable phone for future communications and reassured Ford that the “remarkable omerta” of British journalism would ensure his clandestine efforts would never come to light, according to draft chapters Ford wrote in 2017 and 2018 that were shared with The Post.
Winnett, currently a deputy editor of the Telegraph, did not respond to a detailed list of questions. Ford, who previously declined to be interviewed, did not respond to questions about the draft book chapters.
Winnett is now poised to take over the top editorial position in The Post’s core newsroom, scheduled to start after the November U.S. presidential election. He was appointed by Post CEO and Publisher William Lewis, who has mentored Winnett and worked with him at two British papers. Lewis is also mentioned in Ford’s draft chapters...
It's pretty stunning that journalists at the Washington Post are pushing back against owner Jeff Bezos' hiring of British mini- Murdoch William Lewis as publisher, and Lewis' subsequent hiring of the far- right rag Telegraph's Winnett to be the Post's editor. It remains to be seen if the internal pressure will force Bezos to reconsider his destructive choices, but the Post's former ombudsman Margaret Sullivan has some suggestions.
The pastor of one of the country’s largest churches—and who Donald Trump once named as a spiritual adviser—has admitted to “inappropriate sexual behavior” with a woman who says he sexually abused her when she was just 12 years old.
On Friday, Cindy Clemishire told The Wartburg Watch, a religious watchdog blog, that Robert Morris, the pastor of Texas’ Gateway Church, asked her to come into his room when he stayed with her family for Christmas in 1982. She was 12 and he was 20 at the time. She said Morris molested her and then ordered her not to say anything about his behavior “because it will ruin everything.” The abuse continued for years before Clemishire confided in a close friend, prompting Morris’ wife to find out and Morris to step down from the ministry, according to the report.
He eventually returned to the church and founded Gateway Church in 2000, turning it into one of the country’s largest megachurches with an estimated weekly attendance of 100,000, according to the church. He serves as its senior pastor, prompting Trump to name him to a spiritual advisory board in 2016.
After Clemishire came forward, Morris acknowledged the claims in a statement to The Christian Post, admitting he engaged in “inappropriate sexual behavior” with a “young lady,” refusing to acknowledge Clemishire’s age at the time.
“It was kissing and petting and not intercourse, but it was wrong,” he said.
He claimed that, with the blessing of the girl’s father and church elders, he returned to ministry two years after the abuse was reported. “I asked their forgiveness, and they graciously forgave me,” Morris said... (our emphasis)
We continue to be shocked! shocked! that there's sexual abuse and perversion going on in the precincts of Christofascist MAGAt Republicanism, whose cult leader is convicted felon/ sexual abuser Malignant Loser.
