Good afternoon.
Nasa’s plans to return humans to the moon in the next two years were thrown into jeopardy after a rocket from Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin company exploded in Florida. No one was injured.
A massive fireball engulfed and destroyed the launchpad at the Kennedy Space Center after the start of the “hotfire” test at 11am AEST. An orange sky was visible in Fort Pierce, some 185km to the south.
On Tuesday, Nasa announced that Blue Origin had won the contract to launch the first of three planned missions this year to begin construction of its $20bn moon base.
Bezos said: “It’s too early to know the root cause but we’re already working to find it. Very rough day, but we’ll rebuild whatever needs rebuilding and get back to flying. It’s worth it.”
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In video
Five New Zealand teenagers have notched more than 100m video views and garnered a huge following for their slick and energetic drumming on $10 plastic buckets from a hardware store.
What they said …
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“This isn’t some fun parent giving sips of wine spritzers to kids. She facilitated dangerous and drunken sex acts with these children.” – Santa Clara district attorney Jeff Rosen.
Rosen gave that statement to a court in California in the case of 52-year-old Shannon O’Connor, who was sentenced to 35 years in prison for hosting drunken sex parties for teenagers.
Full Story
The Republicans turning on Trump – Decoding America podcast
Reged Ahmad and Jonathan Yerushalmy look at whether the Iran war, a new $1.8bn “anti-weaponisation” fund and Donald Trump’s intervention in Republican primaries is turning his own party against him.
Before bed read
A few days before what would have been her 100th birthday, Hollywood legends look back on their friendships with Marilyn Monroe, a woman who, underneath the studio sheen, was warm, supportive and empathetic.
Daily word game
Today’s starter word is: PARE. You have five goes to get the longest word including the starter word. Play Wordiply.
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