2 h. ago Elon Musk’s company town: SpaceX employees to vote on ‘Starbase’

Residents – most of them SpaceX workers – in remote Texas community expected to approve plan to create new cityVoters in a small patch of south Texas are casting their ballots on Saturday in an election that could give Elon Musk a town to call his own. The vote would officially create a new city called Starbase in the area where Musk’s SpaceX holds its Texas rocket launches.A couple of hundred residents of what was previously known as Boca Chica will decide whether to make their unincorporated neighborhoods into a town that would grant them the authority to pass city ordinances. The outcome, which will be decided almost entirely by SpaceX employees and their families, who make up the majority of the local population, is nearly guaranteed to result in incorporation. Continue reading...

Technology

2 h. ago It is safe for me to write this article – and for you to read it. But globally, those rights are under grave threat | Antonio Zappulla

The act of labelling journalists ‘foreign agents’ is deliberately chilling. On World Press Freedom Day, be aware of the peril involved in seeking the truthLast month, Georgian president Mikheil Kavelashvili approved a new law inflicting criminal charges, including prison sentences and fines, on any organisation or individual who fails to comply with the country’s “foreign influence” bill.The news didn’t trouble the front pages of the international press and went largely unnoticed, but it marks a significant inflection point in the decline of global press freedom. Continue reading...

Events

4 h. ago 31 of England’s prisons are Victorian. Do they work? – visual investigation

Many jails still in use today were built by the Victorians. Here’s how their 19th-century design is contributing to a 21st-century crisisEngland in the 1840s was a place of dizzying industry, rapid urbanisation and technological progress.Among the proliferation of inventions, a new type of building was unveiled to the world. A prison, K-shaped with long corridors made of sure, thick walls, and small windows in cold, solitary cells.The new prison will be most conducive to the reformation of prisoners and to the repression of crime It resolves itself into a greater uniformity of plan and purpose than has yet been exhibited in prison architecture.The Illustrated London News in its coverage of the new facility on August 13, 1842.The piers or partitions between them are 18 inches thick, and are worked with close joints, so as to preclude as much as possible the transmission of sound. A description of HMP Pentonville in the Illustrated London News, 1843 Continue reading...

Events

7 h. ago Voters to decide if the Texas home of Elon Musk's SpaceX should become an official city: Starbase

Voters are deciding if the South Texas home of Elon Musk’s rocket company SpaceX will become an official city known as Starbase

Politics

7 h. ago AmeriCorps cuts leave people who serve and community organizations scrambling for alternatives

A nonprofit organization based in rural Brazoria County outside of Houston, Mosaic in Action, came around years after Hurricane Harvey to help a homeowner with roof repairs and mold remediation

Politics

11 h. ago University of Texas chancellor is named president of University of California

The University of California has announced that James B

Politics

13 h. ago Goldman Sachs removes the word ‘Black’ from diversity programs as Trump continues to pressure companies to end DEI

Program founded to address Black female wealth gap reportedly now open to wider low-income populations, according to bank insider

Politics

14 h. ago Close call at Reagan airport between planes and Black Hawk helicopter under investigation

The news comes weeks after a close call at the airport

Events

14 h. ago US lawmakers urge SEC to delist Alibaba and Chinese companies

Heads of congressional panels say Baidu, JD.com and others have military links that pose ‘unacceptable risk’ to investors

Politics

14 h. ago Billy Bragg says open letter from music stars defending Kneecap ‘lacks nuance’

The Metropolitan Police’s Counter Terrorism Command is investigating two videos, one of which allegedly shows the band calling for the deaths of MPs.

Politics

14 h. ago Texas AG opens investigation into toothpaste companies over fluoride exposure. But, dentists say it’s safe

Despite decades of data, Trump administration leaders are working to change the federal fluoride regulations

Events

15 h. ago Puerto Rico drops climate lawsuit after DoJ sues states to block threats to big oil

Territory’s voluntary move comes as Trump administration makes good on pledge to end lawsuits against oil and gasPuerto Rico has voluntarily dismissed its 2024 climate lawsuit against big oil, a Friday legal filing shows, just two days after the US justice department sued two states over planned litigation against oil companies for their role in the climate crisis.Puerto Rico’s lawsuit, filed in July, alleged that the oil and gas giants had misled the public about the climate dangers associated with their products. It came as part of a wave of litigation filed by dozens of US states, cities and municipalities in recent years. Continue reading...

Society

16 h. ago Oil and gas supplier says Tesla is ‘refusing to pay’ $2 million in past

Exclusive: Myriad excuses, dubious justifications and ‘constant personnel turnover’ has stymied Sun Coast Resources from being made whole, according to a civil complaint obtained by The Independent

Economics

16 h. ago Several injured after car drives into crowd of pedestrians in Stuttgart

Authorities in Germany say a vehicle slammed into a group of pedestrians in the southwestern city of Stuttgart, injuring several people, some of them seriously

Events

17 h. ago London High School employee under investigation for alleged inappropriate relationship with student

London High School employee under investigation for alleged inappropriate relationship with student  kiiitv.com

Society

18 h. ago McLaren face investigation after Lando Norris sent out with tools in his cockpit

The British driver’s weekend started in peculiar circumstances when he took to the track with a spanner and torch inside his car.

Events

18 h. ago Nursing student from London stabbed to death days before graduation from US university

Tamilore Odunsi was days away from graduating from university

Events

18 h. ago Nursery closes suddenly as Ofsted says it was 'failing to keep children safe'

The council said it had 'concerns' about the nursery

Events

19 h. ago Clawson woman charged for lying to police in London Thomas death investigation

Clawson woman charged for lying to police in London Thomas death investigation  FOX 2 Detroit

Events

19 h. ago Lando Norris under investigation by F1 bosses after huge McLaren howler in Miami

McLaren star and F1 title contender Lando Norris has found himself in hot water at the Miami Grand Prix after an incident in the first practice session on Friday evening

Economics