作者： admin

From blast off to splashdown: My days following Nasa’s historic mission to the Moon

Over 10 extraordinary days that will be written into the annals of human spaceflight, four astronauts made unprecedented history, venturing deeper into deep space than any humans have ever traveled on a round-trip voyage to the Moon and back. As a BBC journalist embedded with the science team covering every phase of the Artemis II mission, I tracked every moment from the thunderous launch to the dramatic lunar flyby and the heart-pounding final landing back on Earth.

Before liftoff, the crew reminded reporters that on launch day, astronauts are consistently the calmest people on site. I cannot say the same. My excitement bubbled over completely, and my unfiltered reaction as the 98-meter tall rocket ignited its massive boosters and climbed skyward quickly went viral across social media.

Standing beside the countdown clock at Florida’s Kennedy Space Center alongside BBC colleagues Alison Francis and Kevin Church, the experience felt visceral enough to touch. The blinding burning white glow of the launch was impossible to look away from, the deafening roar took several seconds to reach the crowd and shook every bone in my body, and the shockwave of the blast rippled straight through the ground. More than anything, I still struggled to process the reality that four living, breathing people were strapped into the capsule at the top of that massive rocket, on their way to the Moon.

As commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, mission specialist Christina Koch and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen caught their first full view of Earth from deep space, Glover shared his thought with the world: “Planet Earth, you look beautiful.” After a short burn of the Orion capsule’s main engine, the crew set off on the 250,000-mile journey toward the lunar orbit.

Live streams beamed directly back to Earth from the capsule as the crew adjusted to microgravity, and viewers immediately got a sense of just how cramped their living quarters were. For 10 days, the four astronauts ate, slept, worked and lived in a space no larger than the interior of a minivan. No privacy existed between crew members, and none from the millions of people around the globe following every development of the mission in real time.

One of the mission’s most high-profile (and widely discussed) snags emerged early on: the $23 million custom-designed Universal Waste Management System, better known as the crew’s toilet, developed unexpected plumbing issues. During a live media briefing, reporters got unvarnished details on how the issue impacted the crew’s daily routine. As it turned out, solid waste operations functioned as normal, but the crew had to rely on collapsible, portable contingency bags with funnels for urine collection.

Later in the mission, I got the chance to visit the Johnson Space Center in Houston to stand inside mission control, the central nervous system of the entire Artemis II operation. The team of flight controllers sat glued to their displays, monitoring a constant flood of real-time data from every one of the capsule’s systems, from navigation to life support. This constant vigilance was never unnecessary: Artemis II was a test flight, the first time humans had flown both the new Space Launch System rocket and the Orion capsule, and test flights carry inherent, tangible risks.

Those risks were driven home in an interview I did with Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen for the 13 Minutes Presents: Artemis II podcast, recorded while he was in pre-launch quarantine. Hansen told me he had spoken openly with his wife and three children about the very real possibility that he might not return home from the mission. Commander Reid Wiseman similarly shared that he had been fully honest with his two daughters about the dangers of the mission; Wiseman has raised his daughters alone as a single father since his wife Carroll died six years before the flight.

That personal loss became one of the most poignant, memorable moments of the entire mission. As the capsule approached the Moon, and the lunar surface grew larger in the capsule’s viewing window, the crew spotted a striking, bright new crater visible from Earth that had not yet been named. To honor Wiseman’s late wife, they officially named the crater after her. The entire crew, gathered to hug their commander, were all in tears, and back in Houston’s mission control, there was not a dry eye in the room, including among our BBC reporting team.

Every NASA staff member we spoke to, from administrator Jared Isaacman to junior engineers and veteran fellow astronauts, felt a deep personal connection to the four-person crew, and pulled for them with every fiber of their being. And in the end, the crew delivered on every expectation.

After breaking the 50-year-old record set by Apollo 13 for the farthest humans have ever traveled from Earth, the Artemis II crew kept pushing forward, ultimately reaching 252,756 miles from Earth’s surface. As they flew past the Moon, the crew captured thousands of high-resolution images and recorded detailed audio descriptions of the stark, desolate beauty of the lunar landscape passing beneath their capsule.

The legacy of the Apollo program runs deep through the Artemis program. Pre-recorded messages from Apollo veteran astronauts Charlie Duke and Jim Lovell (recorded before Lovell’s death in 2025) were played for the crew during their voyage. Still, critics have questioned whether the $93 billion investment in the Artemis program is just an exercise in nostalgic nostalgia, asking why the U.S. is returning to the Moon when it already landed astronauts there more than 50 years ago.

Administrator Isaacman explained that NASA’s goal is to build on the Apollo program’s achievements, not just repeat them. The agency already has a full slate of future lunar exploration plans, including a crewed landing scheduled for 2028, a permanent lunar outpost, and long-term ambitions to land the first humans on Mars. Critics have also questioned whether human exploration of the Moon is necessary at all, when robotic orbiters, rovers and landers can carry out research at a far lower cost and risk. Isaacman pushed back firmly, arguing that human exploration is encoded in human DNA, and that robotic missions cannot replace the insight and judgment that human researchers bring to exploration. He did, however, acknowledge that all progress in space exploration comes with inherent risk.

That risk was never more visible than during the mission’s final and most dangerous phase: the crew’s re-entry and return to Earth. Glover described re-entry as riding on the back of a fireball through the atmosphere; as the capsule hurtled toward the ocean, its heat shield reached temperatures equal to half the temperature of the surface of the Sun. Watching the descent from mission control was a nail-biting, anxiety-fueled experience, made all the more tense when communications went completely black for six long minutes as the capsule was enveloped in plasma during re-entry.

When a tiny, bright white dot of the descending capsule was spotted high above the Pacific Ocean, and Wiseman’s voice came through loud and clear with “Houston, We have you loud and clear,” the wave of relief in mission control was palpable. The capsule descended slowly under massive parachutes and made a gentle splashdown in the Pacific, and the four astronauts were safely back on Earth. The focused, quiet calm of mission control evaporated as the room erupted in cheers and celebration; the thousands of people who worked years on the project had brought their friends home safe.

The Artemis II crew has had an experience unlike any other in human history, and they have acknowledged it will take a long time to fully process what they have seen and done. They have also formed an unbreakable bond with each other. Near the end of their voyage, I spoke to the crew from Earth and asked what they would miss most once they got home. Without a moment of hesitation, Koch said she would miss the camaraderie – that after 10 days crammed together in deep space, the crew is now family.

When they launched, the four astronauts were little known to the general public. Now, after their historic voyage, Wiseman, Glover Koch and Hansen have returned to Earth as household names. Covering this mission has felt like having a front row seat to history being written. My colleagues and I have been constantly surprised by how deeply this mission has gripped the public imagination, as we worked around the clock to meet the world’s insatiable demand for every new update from the voyage. For 10 extraordinary days, the four astronauts took millions of people around the world along with them, pulling us away from our daily lives on Earth and letting us share in the adventure of deep space exploration. If NASA achieves its ambitious exploration goals, and other spacefaring nations join the effort, this will only be the first chapter of a new era of human lunar exploration.

11 4 月, 2026
Iran war lands ‘triple blow’ to flood-ravaged Sri Lankans

For Indrani Ravichandran and her family, the nightmare began in the pitch-black of a November night, when Cyclone Ditwah’s unprecedented rainfall sent floodwaters surging through their small village of Kudugalhena in Sri Lanka’s Kandy district. Within minutes, rising waters swallowed portions of their home, forcing the family to flee into lashing rain, slippery hillsides and constant fear of encountering venomous wildlife displaced by the storm. They escaped with their lives, leaving almost all their belongings behind. Today, months after the cyclone passed, they have returned to the only section of their home that remained standing, joining hundreds of thousands of Sri Lankans still picking up the pieces of the worst natural disaster to hit the island nation in modern history.

Cyclone Ditwah left a trail of destruction that experts say outstripped even the devastating 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami in terms of infrastructure damage. Over just 72 hours, parts of Sri Lanka’s central highlands received up to 500 millimeters of rain – nearly two months of average rainfall – triggering catastrophic flash floods and landslides that washed away entire communities, businesses and residential settlements. The official human toll stands at 643 confirmed dead, with another 173 people still unaccounted for. Close to two million people across all 25 of Sri Lanka’s districts were impacted, with more than 165,000 people remaining displaced months after the storm, housed in temporary shelters or with host families.

According to estimates from the United Nations and international aid agencies, total damage from the cyclone reaches roughly $4 billion – an amount equivalent to 4% of Sri Lanka’s entire annual gross domestic product. Dr. Ganeshan Wignaraja, a visiting senior fellow at London’s ODI Global Institute, notes that while the cyclone’s death toll was lower than that of the 2004 tsunami, its damage to roads, public utilities, private property and critical economic infrastructure is unmatched in the country’s modern history.

The cyclone hit at the worst possible moment for Sri Lanka. The South Asian island nation had only just begun to claw its way back from a crippling 2022 economic crisis, when a collapse in foreign currency reserves led to a sovereign debt default and widespread shortages of food, medicine, fuel and cooking gas. Those shortages sparked mass public protests that ousted then-president Gotabaya Rajapaksa, and the new government had implemented austerity measures including cutting electricity subsidies and raising top income tax rates to 36% in an effort to stabilize public finances and restore growth.

Now, the fallout from the ongoing Iran conflict has compounded the country’s existing challenges, creating what Wignaraja calls a “triple shock” to the fragile economy: first, the $4 billion in damage from Cyclone Ditwah; second, skyrocketing global fuel prices driven by Middle East tensions; and third, a looming drought in parts of the country that threatens to deepen resource shortages.

In response to shrinking fuel supplies and spiking global prices, the Sri Lankan government has been forced to implement emergency austerity measures in recent weeks: fuel rationing, broad price hikes, a mandatory four-day working week to cut energy consumption, a 40% increase in electricity tariffs, and rolling power and water cuts to conserve dwindling resources. Fuel and cooking gas shortages have already triggered panic buying across the country, stirring grim memories of the 2022 crisis, when daily power cuts stretched up to 13 hours and basic essentials were unobtainable for millions.

As the government struggles to fund post-cyclone reconstruction, it has secured only around $750 million of the estimated $4 billion in recovery costs – barely one-fifth of what is needed. Unlike the 2004 tsunami, which drew immediate billions in international donor pledges from across the globe, the international response to Cyclone Ditwah has been far more muted. Only neighboring India moved quickly to mount a large-scale relief effort, launching Operation Sagar Bandhu – “Friend Across the Sea” – deploying two warships including an aircraft carrier, launching rescue sorties that saved hundreds of people including foreign citizens, setting up field hospitals, restoring critical infrastructure, and delivering more than 1,000 tonnes of emergency supplies. New Delhi also provided $450 million in grants and direct aid, making it by far the largest international donor to date.

In contrast, long-time Sri Lankan ally and major investor China has offered minimal support: less than $2 million in financial aid and roughly 100 tonnes of emergency supplies. The Sri Lankan government formally requested Chinese support for key infrastructure reconstruction projects in January, but has yet to receive a substantive response.

Sri Lankan disaster management officials acknowledge that while most families with partially damaged homes – like the Ravichandrans, who received 50,000 rupees ($325) in repair aid plus additional support for their young children – have received government assistance, compensation for families who lost their entire homes or businesses has been delayed. KG Dharmathilake, a senior official in the country’s disaster management division, says the delay stems from the government’s focus on “building back better”: officials are prioritizing identifying safe, disaster-resilient land for new housing to protect families from future extreme weather events, rather than rushing construction in high-risk areas. He adds that more than 80% of all affected residents have already received the financial support they are eligible for.

For displaced Sri Lankans and economic analysts alike, the outlook has grown even bleaker in recent weeks due to the Iran conflict. Beyond spiking fuel prices, the crisis threatens Sri Lanka’s key source of foreign exchange: remittances from the estimated one million Sri Lankan workers based in Gulf nations. Last year, those remittances totalled roughly $7 billion, nearly matching the country’s current total foreign reserves of $7 billion. While mass layoffs have not yet occurred, economists warn that a prolonged conflict in the Middle East could cut off new job opportunities for Sri Lankan migrant workers and reduce overall remittance inflows, further straining the country’s ability to pay for critical imports and fund reconstruction.

Economists say that with careful fiscal management, the current $7 billion in foreign reserves should be enough to get the country through the immediate crisis of cyclone recovery and spiking fuel prices. But a prolonged fallout from the Iran conflict would push the country back into the kind of economic chaos it saw in 2022. For President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, who took office after the 2022 crisis, successfully navigating this compound of natural disaster and geopolitical economic shock will be the defining test of his leadership.

11 4 月, 2026
Over 90 arrested as hundreds gather to defy Palestine Action ban in London

On a Saturday afternoon in central London, hundreds of demonstrators gathered in the iconic Trafalgar Square to openly defy the UK government’s recent ban of the direct action group Palestine Action, deliberately putting themselves at risk of arrest under sweeping counterterrorism legislation.

Organized around a silent vigil, approximately 500 protesters set up camping chairs along the base of Trafalgar Square’s central steps, holding handcrafted cardboard placards that bore a simple, unapologetic message: “I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action.” In a show of force that preceded the start of the demonstration, London’s Metropolitan Police had already lined the open square with police vans, deploying a heavy uniformed presence hours before the first protester arrived.

Footage and on-the-ground reporting from the event captured images that have become increasingly common across the UK in the months since the ban was enacted: elderly protesters, many grey-haired, frail, or relying on crutches for mobility, were physically hauled away by officers. A number of demonstrators chose to dress as Suffragettes, the early 20th-century British women’s suffrage activists, to draw a parallel between their current civil disobedience and historical fights for democratic rights. At one point during the arrests, one elderly woman lost consciousness while being carried by officers, and was placed in the recovery position by police as onlookers watched on.

This demonstration is far from an isolated incident. Since the UK government formally proscribed Palestine Action as a terrorist group in July 2025, more than 1,600 people have been arrested under counterterrorism laws simply for holding placards echoing the same message displayed at the Trafalgar Square vigil, government data shows. Many of the attendees at Saturday’s gathering have already been detained multiple times for the same act of peaceful protest.

Among the protesters were 70-something siblings Mark and Betty, who traveled separately from Wales and Cornwall to attend the London vigil. Both have a long history of local Palestine advocacy, and this marked their first joint appearance at a national demonstration. Mark, a Jewish genocide scholar, told Middle East Eye that his participation carries triple weight: as a member of the Jewish community, a scholar of mass atrocities, and a critic of the UK government’s policy. “I don’t want to be here. I want the government to acknowledge a failing and unravel this ban,” he said.

Betty, also Jewish and a veteran of decades of anti-war organizing, echoed her brother’s frustration. “There is really very little else we can do. We’ve done everything: smaller local protests, writing letters to our Members of Parliament, signing petitions,” she explained. “But clearly this government will not be told unless it is forced to be told by making things very, very difficult for them by being here.” She added that the current political climate has reached a deeply worrying point: “But now we’ve got into the stage where we’re not even allowed to turn up on the street with a bit of paper for being absurdly peaceful people.”

Also in attendance were former Palestine Action supporters who had been imprisoned after the ban, among them Heba Muraisi, who took part in a 73-day hunger strike behind bars to protest both poor detention conditions and the proscription itself. Muraisi, who had only recently been released, told reporters she had watched previous “Lift the Ban” protests on a small prison television, and witnessing the police response in person was staggering. “It’s crazy actually witnessing it. It’s both insane and disgusting. Look how many police are here, just for elderly people holding placards. It’s a joke. The state is a joke,” she said.

Trudi Warner, a veteran activist who previously faced contempt of court charges for holding a pro-jury rights placard outside a climate change trial, argued that the UK government is completely disconnected from widespread public sentiment on Palestine. “People are outraged, they are furious, and we’re trying to show that,” Warner said. “Our thing is show, don’t tell. We can tell people that we’re living in an authoritarian state. They won’t believe us, but we can show them, and that’s what these actions are all about.”

Saturday’s mass arrests come against a shifting legal backdrop. In February 2026, the UK High Court issued a ruling that found the government’s ban on Palestine Action was unlawful. Following that decision, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood was granted permission to appeal the High Court’s ruling, with the appeal scheduled to be heard on April 28 and 29.

After the initial High Court ruling, the Metropolitan Police issued a public statement saying it would suspend arrests of Palestine Action supporters and proscription opponents under counterterrorism laws, and would instead focus solely on gathering evidence for future prosecutions pending the appeal. But in a sudden policy reversal that surprised activists, the Met backtracked, describing its initial statement as an “interim position” and announcing it had revised its approach to resume arrests. Prior to Saturday’s vigil, MEE had already confirmed the Met had arrested two people on proscription-related charges after announcing the suspension.

Defend our Juries (DOJ), the activist group leading the national campaign to overturn the Palestine Action ban, said it had formally written to Met Commissioner Mark Rowley to warn that any arrests carried out after the High Court’s unlawful ruling would carry serious legal repercussions. The group noted it had planned Saturday’s vigil based on the Met’s original pledge to suspend arrests, and that police had failed to issue a substantive response to correspondence from the group’s legal team ahead of the event.

DOJ argues that any post-ruling arrests are unlawful, as they violate protesters’ fundamental democratic rights enshrined in the UK Human Rights Act and the European Convention on Human Rights. In a formal statement released after the vigil, the group said: “It is clear that the Metropolitan Police has adopted a policy of a) refusing to investigate crimes under the [International Criminal Court Act] relating to the acts of the government of Israel; and b) suppressing public expression of opposition to such crimes. Such a biased and discriminatory policy materially assists both the Israeli Government and Elbit Systems in the commission of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.”

Dal Babu, a former chief superintendent with the Metropolitan Police, told BBC Radio 4 that the optics of mass arresting peaceful elderly protesters will create significant reputational challenges for the force. “The optics of the mass arrests will be very challenging for the police… in terms of how they manage it,” Babu said. “Also be aware of the fact there will be a huge amount of people who have sympathy with what is going on with the views of Palestine Action.”

Official Home Office data underscores the scale of the crackdown: arrests linked to the Palestine Action ban make up the majority of the 1,800 total terrorism arrests conducted across the UK in 2025, representing a 660% year-on-year increase in counterterrorism detentions. Multiple leading human rights organizations have repeatedly warned that the proscription of Palestine Action represents a dangerous misuse of counterterrorism legislation that threatens core civil liberties, including the rights to free expression and peaceful assembly.

A DOJ spokesperson emphasized that the campaign to lift the ban has grown far beyond a single protest rights issue. “The government’s refusal to accept the judgment of the High Court, coupled with inconsistent and opaque policing decisions, signals a troubling disregard for the rule of law,” the spokesperson said. “These are not the actions of institutions committed to protecting citizens, but of a state prioritising its own authority. Today’s wrongful arrests of… people holding signs at a silent vigil are further evidence of this.”

11 4 月, 2026
US and Iran hold direct talks in Pakistan to end war

Six weeks after open conflict erupted between the United States and Iran, the two long-adversarial nations convened their highest-level face-to-face negotiations in half a century Saturday in Pakistan’s capital of Islamabad, marking the first direct formal high-level meeting between the two sides since Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution. The two-hour closed-door session brought together a high-powered American delegation led by Vice President JD Vance, special envoy Steve Witkoff, and former White House senior advisor Jared Kushner, while Iran was represented by parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi. Pakistan’s army chief also joined the opening round of talks, as the South Asian nation served as a neutral mediator for the breakthrough diplomatic engagement. The talks entered a pause after the initial session, even as competing and contradictory accounts of early progress and on-ground developments began to emerge even before negotiators released any official joint statement. One key point of contention is the status of the Strait of Hormuz, the strategically critical waterway that carries roughly a fifth of the world’s daily oil supplies. Iran’s blockade of the strait earlier sparked the largest single disruption to global energy markets in modern history. A senior anonymous U.S. official told news outlet Axios that multiple U.S. Navy vessels traversed the strait on Saturday, but both Iranian state television and an anonymous Pakistani source outright denied any U.S. ships had passed through the waterway. Shortly after the opening of talks, former U.S. President Donald Trump claimed on social media that the process of clearing the Strait of Hormuz had already begun, adding that all 28 of Iran’s mine-laying vessels had been sunk. No independent confirmation of this claim has emerged as of Saturday evening. Another conflicting report centers on the fate of billions of dollars in Iranian assets frozen by U.S. sanctions in foreign banks, primarily in Qatar. A senior unnamed Iranian source earlier told Reuters that the U.S. had agreed to release these assets, a statement that was immediately rejected by a U.S. official. The direct Saturday meeting came after hours of pre-negotiation shuttle diplomacy led by Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who worked to align both sides on basic terms before the first face-to-face encounter. Iranian state media outlined Tehran’s core pre-negotiation red lines that Washington must accept for any final agreement: progress on the status of the Strait of Hormuz, the full unfreezing of Iranian blocked assets, war reparation payments from the U.S., and a comprehensive immediate ceasefire across the entire Middle East region. A key non-U.S.-Iran conflict at the top of Tehran’s negotiating agenda is the ongoing Israeli military campaign in Lebanon, where strikes have continued despite the recent bilateral ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran. On Wednesday alone, Israeli strikes killed more than 350 people in Lebanon, and total fatalities from Israeli operations that began in March have reached nearly 2,000. Both the U.S. and Israel have insisted that the military campaign in Lebanon falls outside the scope of the U.S.-Iran ceasefire, a position Tehran strongly rejects. Iran’s negotiating delegation has confirmed it will continue to press for an immediate ceasefire to end Israeli strikes in Lebanon during the ongoing talks. Even as the Islamabad talks got underway Saturday, fresh violence rocked southern Lebanon: Israeli air strikes hit more than a dozen locations, killing 10 people including a Lebanese civil defense member and two paramedics. In response, the Iran-aligned group Hezbollah announced it had carried out multiple targeted operations against Israeli military positions both inside Lebanese border territories and across the frontier in northern Israel. Looking ahead, both Israeli and Lebanese officials have confirmed they will hold separate talks in Washington on Tuesday, though the two sides have also released conflicting accounts of what agenda those discussions will cover, adding another layer of uncertainty to the already volatile regional situation as world powers wait for outcomes from the historic U.S.-Iran negotiations in Pakistan.

11 4 月, 2026
Chinese Kuomintang leader hails tech example set by Beijing

In a landmark visit to China’s capital Beijing, Cheng Li-wun, chairwoman of the Chinese Kuomintang (KMT), has praised the remarkable technological advances achieved on the Chinese mainland, describing her cross-strait trip as deeply productive and enlightening.\n\nThe visit, which took place in early April 2026, opened with a solemn and symbolic stop on Saturday morning, when Cheng led a delegation of senior KMT figures to the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall. Tucked within the grounds of Biyun Temple on Beijing’s scenic Fragrant Hills in the city’s northwestern outskirts, the memorial hall holds profound historical significance for both sides of the Taiwan Strait, as Sun Yat-sen is a revered pioneer of China’s democratic revolution shared by both the KMT and people across the strait.\n\nDuring her time in Beijing, Cheng got a first-hand look at the Chinese mainland’s cutting-edge technological development, which left a lasting positive impression on the KMT leader. She explicitly highlighted Beijing’s progress in the technology sector as a notable example worth recognition. This visit marks a key moment in cross-strait party exchanges, coming as Cheng held a historic meeting with General Secretary Xi Jinping of the Communist Party of China Central Committee during her stay in the capital, a meeting the KMT chair has already characterized as a pivotal milestone for cross-strait relations.\n\nObservers note that positive remarks from the KMT leader about the Chinese mainland’s technological development reflect growing people-to-people and party-to-party recognition of the mainland’s development achievements, creating a foundation for further constructive exchanges across the Taiwan Strait in the fields of technology, industry and people’s livelihoods.

11 4 月, 2026
‘It’s a special thing to be on Planet Earth’: Artemis crew welcomed home in Houston

Houston’s Johnson Space Center rolled out a warm, celebratory welcome on Monday for the four-member Artemis II crew, whose landmark nine-day journey around the Moon has secured its place in human exploration history. The mission marked an extraordinary milestone for space travel: the four-person team traveled farther from Earth than any humans have ever gone before, pushing the boundaries of human deep-space exploration and paving the way for NASA’s ambitious goal of returning astronauts to the lunar surface.

Addressing an audience of thousands of cheering NASA employees, space industry partners, and family members, crew commander Reid Wiseman summed up the profound emotion of the journey, saying, “It’s a special thing to be on Planet Earth.” The comment reflected the transformative perspective the astronauts gained from seeing Earth rise against the black expanse of space from lunar orbit, a view that only 24 humans have witnessed firsthand since the Apollo era.

The nine-day mission, which launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida earlier this month, was a critical uncrewed test flight no—wait, correction, this was the first crewed test flight of the Space Launch System rocket and Orion capsule, the core vehicles that will power future Artemis landing missions. The successful voyage validated key life support, navigation, and heat shield systems that will be used when the first woman and first person of color step onto the Moon during Artemis III, currently scheduled for 2026.

NASA officials emphasized that the mission’s success is more than a symbolic win for space exploration; it lays the groundwork for eventual human missions to Mars, turning decades of planning into tangible progress. For Houston, which has served as the heart of American human spaceflight for more than 60 years, the homecoming celebration was also a reminder of the city’s enduring role in leading humanity’s push beyond low Earth orbit.

11 4 月, 2026
Manhattan prosecutor investigates abuse claims against congressman Eric Swalwell

A high-stakes political drama has unfolded in American politics this week, after the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office confirmed it has opened a formal investigation into multiple sexual misconduct allegations against U.S. Representative Eric Swalwell, a leading Democratic candidate for governor of California.

Four women have now come forward with accusations against the congressman, ranging from persistent sexual harassment to non-consensual sexual assault, with one of the alleged incidents occurring on Manhattan soil. Swalwell, who has represented a Northern California district covering areas near San Francisco since 2012 and launched a high-profile bid to replace outgoing Governor Gavin Newsom in this year’s election, has forcefully denied every claim. In public statements, he has pledged to clear his name using documented facts and has not ruled out pursuing legal action against his accusers.

In an official public statement released Saturday, the New York prosecutor’s office extended an invitation for survivors and any other individuals with information relevant to the allegations to reach out to its Special Victims Division. “Our specially trained prosecutors, investigators and counselors are well-equipped to help you in a trauma-informed, survivor-centered manner,” the office said. Representatives for Swalwell did not issue an immediate response to repeated requests for comment from the BBC following the announcement of the investigation.

The first public allegation against Swalwell appeared Friday in the *San Francisco Chronicle*, from a woman who previously worked as a staff member in his Castro Valley district office. She told the outlet that shortly after she was hired, Swalwell began making unwanted inappropriate comments, repeatedly solicited her for sexual encounters and sent unsolicited sexual messages. The former staffer alleges she was assaulted by Swalwell on two separate occasions: the first in September 2019, after the pair went out for drinks, and the second in 2024 following a charity gala in New York City. Both times, she told the newspaper, she was too impaired by alcohol to give legal consent. The BBC has not been able to independently confirm the details of her account or verify her identity, but has reached out to her legal representation for comment.

Shortly after the first report, CNN published accounts from three additional women, bringing the total number of accusers to four, all raising claims of varying degrees of sexual misconduct against the congressman. The network also reported that Swalwell’s legal team has already sent cease-and-desist letters demanding retractions to two of the women making accusations.

In a public video message posted to Facebook Friday, Swalwell addressed the allegations directly to voters. He acknowledged he has made errors in judgment earlier in his life, framing those past mistakes as private matters between himself and his wife, to whom he issued a deep apology for the public scandal. “I do not suggest to you that I am perfect or a saint,” he said. “I’ve certainly made mistakes in judgment in my past. But those mistakes are between me and my wife. And to her, I apologise deeply for putting her in this position.” He reiterated his denial of all the misconduct allegations, stating: “For nearly 20 years, I have served the public – as a prosecutor and a congressman and have always protected women. I will defend myself with the facts and where necessary bring legal action.”

The timing of the allegations could not be more consequential for Swalwell’s gubernatorial campaign. The investigation comes just weeks before California begins mailing out ballots to voters for the June 2 primary, in an open race to lead the nation’s most populous state. Before the allegations surfaced, two separate public opinion polls ranked Swalwell as one of the top two front-runners for the Democratic nomination in the crowded primary field. Within hours of the first reports of the accusations, Swalwell lost the public endorsement of several of his most prominent political backers, including U.S. Senator Adam Schiff and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, whose support had been a major boost to his campaign credibility.

11 4 月, 2026
US-Iran talks begin in Pakistan’s Islamabad

Diplomatic efforts to defuse long-running tensions between the United States and Iran have moved into a new phase, with direct talks aimed at ending ongoing hostilities officially kicking off in Pakistan’s capital city of Islamabad this Saturday, multiple regional and international media outlets have confirmed.

The meeting, hosted by Pakistan, marks a rare high-level diplomatic engagement between the two nations that have been locked in a decades-long adversarial standoff. For years, open hostilities and broken diplomatic channels have contributed to widespread instability across the Middle East and broader South Asian region, raising global concerns about escalated conflict. The decision to launch negotiations in Islamabad reflects Pakistan’s ongoing role as a neutral diplomatic intermediary between Tehran and Washington, leveraging its long-standing bilateral relationships with both governments to create space for dialogue.

While details of the negotiation agenda and initial discussions have not been released to the public at this early stage, the launch of direct talks itself marks a significant shift from the open confrontation that has defined US-Iran relations for much of the past decade. International observers have broadly framed the talks as a critical opportunity to de-escalate tensions that have already spilled over into regional conflicts in recent years, with stakeholders across the globe closely watching for developments out of the Islamabad negotiations.

11 4 月, 2026
England beats Ireland in front of record Women’s Six Nations crowd at Twickenham

The 2024 Women’s Six Nations kicked off this weekend with a landmark moment for women’s rugby, as a record-breaking sell-out crowd packed London’s Twickenham Stadium to watch newly crowned world champions England open their title defense with a dominant 33-12 victory over Ireland on Saturday.

Saturday’s attendance hit 77,120 fans, falling just 4,700 short of the all-time women’s rugby attendance record set at last September’s World Cup final, also hosted at Twickenham when England defeated Canada to claim the global title. This figure shattered the previous Women’s Six Nations attendance record of 58,498, set during a 2023 England-France clash, with organizers projecting that total cumulative attendance for this year’s tournament will far outpace the 151,506 fans that turned out across all matches in 2023. The sustained surge in ticket demand comes directly on the heels of England’s 2023 World Cup victory, which has dramatically boosted mainstream interest in elite women’s rugby.

Playing their first test match since lifting the World Cup trophy, England showed early rust but still outmatched Ireland in physicality, extending their unprecedented global winning streak to 34 consecutive test matches. By halftime, England held a commanding 21-0 lead, with front-row forwards Amy Cokayne and Sarah Bern each crossing for tries off set-piece lineouts. Two key England players — lock Morwenna Talling and scrumhalf Natasha Hunt — finished the match on crutches after picking up injuries, but the reigning champions closed out the game with two late spectacular tries: Jess Breach marked her 54th test appearance with her 54th career try in the 54th minute, a fitting statistical milestone, before Ellie Kildunne finished off a blistering 60-meter counterattack to extend the lead.

Ireland earned a moral victory by adding two late tries from Anna McGann and new captain Erin King, securing their narrowest defeat to England in a decade. Megan Jones, who made her debut as England’s new full-time captain in the match, was named player of the match for her standout performance. “There’s always going to be nerves going into a big campaign off the back of an amazing World Cup,” Jones told reporters after the game. “To have this crowd is phenomenal. We want to play but sometimes it gets a bit unstuck like that. But we found ways, that’s what a winning team does.”

Across the other opening weekend fixtures, second-ranked France pulled away from Italy for a 40-7 victory in Grenoble, extending their winning streak against Italy to six consecutive matches. The match featured six French debutantes, three of whom started in the lineup, including standout tackle machine Mathilde Lazarko. Prop Assia Khalfaoui earned player of the match honors for her dominant performance up front. France held only a narrow 5-0 halftime lead after winger Anaïs Grando scored a try on her international debut, but broke the game open in the second half when flyhalf Carla Arbez sliced through Italy’s defensive line to trigger a try-scoring flood. Tries from props Yllana Brosseau and Khalfaoui, a setup for winger Léa Murie from new fullback Pauline Barrat, and a late try from Barrat herself pushed France to a 40-0 lead by the 76th minute, before Italy’s Gaia Buso scored a converted consolation try — Italy’s first points against France in three and a half years of play. The match ended on a sour note for France, however, as star center Joanna Grisez left the pitch with a serious-looking knee injury.

In the final opening match at Cardiff, Scotland pulled off a narrow 24-19 comeback win over Wales. Wales held a 12-10 halftime lead after powerful tries from front-rowers Kelsey Jones and Sisilia Tuipulotu, backed by rugged defensive play. Scotland capitalized on gaps in Wales’ backfield, with tries from Shona Campbell and Lucia Scott set up by well-placed kicks behind the Welsh defense. Accurate goalkicking from Helen Nelson put Scotland up 24-12 heading into the final minutes. Wales’ substitute reserves lifted the team’s tempo, and captain Kate Williams scored a converted try after a setup from Seren Lockwood, cutting Scotland’s lead to just five points. In the 87th minute of stoppage time, with Scotland reduced to 14 players, Wales worked their way out of their own 22-meter line to within 35 meters of the Scottish try line, but a misplayed trick lineout play ended their dramatic late fightback with the ball on the turf.

11 4 月, 2026
Hungarian election rivals Orbán and Magyar make final push for votes on eve of poll

On the eve of Hungary’s most consequential national election in over a decade, the country’s two largest political factions wrapped up chaotic, high-stakes campaign seasons Saturday with closing rallies that laid bare the stark divides shaping Sunday’s vote. For incumbent Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, the ballot box marks the greatest existential threat to his 16-year grip on national power, as challenger Péter Magyar’s upstart center-right Tisza Party has surged to double-digit leads in most independent public opinion surveys. A Tisza victory would oust Orbán in one of the most dramatic political upsets in modern Hungarian history, though many analysts caution the final result could be far closer than polling suggests, noting Orbán’s ruling Fidesz party retains a deeply loyal, highly mobilized base across rural Hungary.

Magyar, a 45-year-old lawyer and one-time insider within Fidesz’s own political circle, has spent the past two years crisscrossing the country, stopping in hundreds of small towns and rural communities to court voters who have long backed Orbán. Saturday, he brought his closing argument to Debrecen, Hungary’s second-largest city and a longstanding Fidesz stronghold, where thousands of cheering Tisza supporters packed University Square to hear him speak.

Striking an optimistic, defiant tone, Magyar framed Sunday’s vote as a defining turning point for the nation. “This election will enter Hungarian history books as the day of resurrection, the renewal of the Hungarian nation, and of the real change of regime,” he told the crowd. Rejecting the divisive rhetoric that has defined Orbán’s tenure, Magyar extended an olive branch to Fidesz voters, promising his first act in office would be to pursue national reconciliation. “As the winner of the election, we will have to extend a hand to our fellow countrymen,” he said, outlining a plan to reunite a country split by years of polarized rule.

Addressing one of the core pillars of his campaign, Magyar reaffirmed his commitment to keeping Hungary anchored in the European Union, reversing Orbán’s gradual shift toward closer political and economic ties to Moscow. As supporters waved Hungarian flags and chanted “Európa! Európa!”, he declared, “many millions” of voters would confirm on Sunday that “Hungary’s place was, is, and will be in Europe.”

Annamária Matkovics, a 50-year-old farmer and local Tisza activist in the eastern Hungarian town of Balmazújváros, who joined the party when it launched in 2024, said even in traditional Fidesz heartland, discontent with the incumbent has reached a breaking point. While many voters report fears of retaliation — including losing their state-supported jobs — if they are caught backing the opposition, Matkovics said most dissidents are still prepared to vote for change. “When we’re campaigning on the street, people tell us that they’re worried that they’ll lose their jobs if they don’t vote for Fidesz, and they’re still planning to vote for Tisza,” she said. “They’ve had enough of the division.”

A few hundred kilometers away in Budapest, Orbán closed his campaign to thousands of supporters on the city’s historic Castle Hill, doubling down on the core message that has defined his reelection bid: framing the election as a choice between stability and risky change, amid what he calls a wave of external threats endangering the Hungarian people. With Russia’s ongoing full-scale war in neighboring Ukraine top of mind, Orbán warned the country could not afford to hand power to an inexperienced newcomer.

“We are in an age of danger,” Orbán told the crowd. “Hungary is facing serious challenges. We need to say no to major power groups in the world in order to defend ourselves, and this requires knowledge, experience and routine. Now is not the time to take risks, to change, to renew and to adventure. Now we need to protect and secure what we have.”

Orbán’s campaign has been hobbled by multiple headwinds this cycle: stubbornly poor economic performance that has driven high inflation and rising living costs for ordinary Hungarians, growing public scrutiny of his administration’s increasingly close ties to the Kremlin, and persistent allegations of systemic corruption that benefit a small circle of political allies close to the prime minister. To shore up support, Orbán has leaned heavily on his high-profile relationship with former U.S. President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly endorsed his reelection. Earlier this week, U.S. Vice President JD Vance traveled to Budapest for a two-day campaign stop, headlining a publicly funded rally alongside Orbán to boost his bid for a fifth term.

In contrast to Orbán’s focus on external threats and geopolitical risk, Magyar has centered his campaign on bread-and-butter issues that directly impact Hungarian households: soaring inflation, skyrocketing living costs, and the crumbling state of public healthcare and transportation infrastructure. He has also made a core campaign promise to root out what he calls endemic government corruption that has enriched a tiny elite at the public’s expense — allegations Orbán has repeatedly denied. With turnout expected to be high across the country, all eyes now turn to Sunday, when Hungarian voters will decide whether to extend Orbán’s 16-year tenure or usher in the most sweeping political change the country has seen in a generation.

11 4 月, 2026