Author: staff

European private aerospace company Isar Aerospace successfully completed the first test flight of its Spectrum rocket, despite the rocket crashing to the ground 30 seconds after launch on Sunday.Isar Aerospace, a German start-up based in Munich, launched the rocket from the island of Andøya in northern Norway. The rocket took off from the platform at 12.30 pm CET and flew for about 30 seconds before flipping over and falling back to the ground, causing a powerful explosion. The Spectrum is a 28-metre-long, two-stage rocket specifically designed to place small and medium-sized satellites into orbit. This marks the first attempt to…

The senior executive is listed as a vice president for the Europe region at Huawei and previously held a position as chief representative to the European Union leading the firm’s public affairs office in Brussels. He can only be identified as Yong J. Tuesday’s hearing, held behind closed doors, was part of proceedings where defense teams engage with senior judges to discuss procedural matters, including potential custody decisions.  The senior executive could not be reached for comment and his lawyers did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A Huawei spokesperson also did not immediately respond to a request…

A mere three days after US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth boasted on national television that America “no longer looked like fools,” it emerged that he was part of a group of high-ranking officials who inadvertently texted plans for an attack in Yemen to a journalist.Hegseth, alongside Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, National Security Advisor Michael Waltz and others, had been using the messaging platform Signal to discuss highly sensitive and classified information.Democratic lawmakers swiftly condemned this as an “egregious” security breach, and US President Donald Trump said he knew “nothing about it,” as his team claimed…

– Endspurt bei den Koalitionsverhandlungen: Worüber Merz, Klingbeil, Esken und Söder auf den letzten Metern noch verhandelt haben – und wie für heute das Finale vorbereitet worden ist, bespricht Gordon Repinski mit Rasmus Buchsteiner.– Im 200-Sekunden-Interview: Armand Zorn. In den Koalitionsverhandlungen war er der SPD-Chefverhandler für Digitales. Er beantwortet die Frage, was Schwarz-Rot für die Digitalisierung tun kann und will.– 8. Mai: Wie Friedrich Merz am 80. Jahrestag der Befreiung wichtige Zeichen in Richtung Polen und Frankreich setzen will.– SPD-Unterstützer und die Koalitionsverhandlung: Wie Roland Kaiser Schwarz-Rot sieht.  Das Berlin Playbook als Podcast gibt es morgens um 5 Uhr. Gordon…

The European Commission has charged the largest online platform providers in the EU a total of €58.2 million in supervisory fees last year, it disclosed in a report to the European Parliament and member states published on Monday.The fees – charged to the largest online platforms with more than 45 million users per month – are meant to cover the Digital Services Act (DSA) enforcement activities of the Commission in 2025, as well as human resources and administration costs, the EU executive said. The fee for each individual platform may not be greater than 0.05% of the service provider’s worldwide profit…

Finally, women’s negligées from Ohio and Kentucky, a fan favorite from the Commission’s first proposal, made the final cut; so did men’s undergarments, although they are mostly found in blue states. Zooming back The trade war unleashed by Trump comes with a hefty price for Washington, as Canada and China have responded to the U.S. president’s deluge of duties with their own counter tariffs. Overall, retaliatory measures imposed by China, Canada and the EU will hit nearly $90 billion of American exports. Beijing has mainly targeted U.S. produce, slapping a 15 percent duty on commodities like chicken, wheat and corn…

A Bitcoin investor and three polar explorers blasted off on Monday in the first rocket ride over the North and South Poles. Chun Wang, a Chinese-born entrepreneur, flew southward in a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket over the Atlantic on a path never flown before. The first leg of the flight, from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida to the South Pole took half an hour and would circle the globe in roughly 90 minutes. “Enjoy the views of the poles. Send us some pictures,” SpaceX Launch Control radioed once the capsule reached orbit.’Pushing boundaries’Wang said he’s been counting up his…

Seven countries — France, Germany, Italy, Austria, Hungary, Slovakia and the Netherlands — led the charge to rein in gas purchase goals, advocating lowering a 90-percent-of-capacity storage target to 80 percent in certain circumstances. They say the higher figure is locking the EU into buying huge volumes of gas, much of it from the U.S., at a time when it is most expensive. “In these turbulent times and [amid the] ongoing fight for competitiveness, it would be, of course, a better solution [to have greater flexibility] than just to stick to the current targets,” Lithuanian Energy Minister Žygimantas Vaičiūnas said…

OpenAI is gearing up to release its first open-weight language model since GPT-2 “in the coming months”. That’s according to a feedback form on the company’s website that asked developers, researchers and the broader community for insight on how to “make this model as useful as possible”. CEO Sam Altman expanded on the decision on the social media platform X, saying that the launch “feels important to do”.Before its release, the company will evaluate the model with their “preparedness framework” like they do with others, Altman added. The company will also be hosting developer sessions in the US, Europe, and Asia Pacific to…

As concerns over the potential spread of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) grow across Europe, farms are tightening biosecurity measures to safeguard both livestock and the broader agricultural industry. In Estonia several large farms, such as Andri-Peedo goat farm in Misso, Võru County, have taken proactive steps to protect against the disease’s introduction. Andri-Peedo, located right on the Estonian-Latvian border, has posted clear signs barring any visits to the premises.Nopri farm, another key agricultural operation, has also opted to close its doors to visitors. Nopri, alongside others, has also chosen not to participate in this year’s Open Farms Day, an annual event…