All posts tagged: Fiery

FBI chief Kash Patel defends hiring standards changes on prostitution, bestiality at fiery hearing

FBI chief Kash Patel defends hiring standards changes on prostitution, bestiality at fiery hearing

Published by Sam Flores

WASHINGTON — FBI Director Kash Patel on Tuesday defended the bureau’s loosening of hiring standards regarding an applicant’s past experience with prostitution and bestiality, insisting that the changes were meant to enable victims of those acts to be considered for employment without fear of automatic disqualification. The subject arose during a contentious Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in which Patel clashed with Democrats over his firing of agents who participated in investigations of President Trump, a spate of media leak probes, and whether employees would be dispatched to the polls on Election Day in light of the bureau’s ongoing election-related investigations and Trump’s repeated and false claims about the existence of pervasive voter fraud. The hearing featured the name-calling and bitingly personal exchanges that have come to define Patel’s appearances on Capitol Hill, with Democrats characterizing the Trump appointee as unqualified, criticizing him for politically charged investigations into Trump’s enemies and highlighting travel that has included a trip to the Winter Olympics in Italy during which he partied with U.S. hockey players and a snorkeling excursion at the …

NASA abandons mission to save Swift Observatory from a fiery death

NASA abandons mission to save Swift Observatory from a fiery death

Published by Jenni Sidey

Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. By signing up, you confirm you are 16+, will receive newsletters and promotional content and agree to our Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy. You may unsubscribe at any time. NASA engineers have confirmed they can’t spare the historic Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory from a fiery demise, despite their best efforts. In July, mission specialists partnering with Katalyst Space Technologies launched the Link spacecraft with the hopes of capturing the orbital telescope and boosting it into a higher orbit. However,numerous complications forced the team to finally abandon the rescue attempt. “This is not the outcome we were working toward, but it does not change why this mission was worth attempting,” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said in a statement. Deployed in 2004, the Swift Observatory spent over two decades gazing into some of the universe’s most powerful explosions. In 2022, the orbital space telescope even glimpsed the most luminous eruption ever seen—a gamma ray …

Andy Burnham makes dramatic comeback as fiery Commons clash erupts over Hillsborough | Politics | News

Andy Burnham makes dramatic comeback as fiery Commons clash erupts over Hillsborough | Politics | News

Published by Sam Flores

Andy Burnham (Image: House of Commons/UK Parliament/PA Wire) Andy Burnham praised Sir Keir Starmer for his work on the long-delayed Hillsborough law as MPs approved new legislation to prevent cover-ups linked to failures of the state. It imposes a duty on public authorities and officials to tell the truth and proactively co-operate with official investigations and inquiries. The legislation has been delayed by wrangling over how the duty applies to the intelligence services, with ministers recently breaking the deadlock with further changes. The bill’s approval comes in Sir Keir’s final days as prime minister with Mr Burnham succeeding him on Monday. Speaking in the Commons for the first time since his election as Labour MP for Makerfield, the Prime Minister-in-waiting said the legislation will “change the way this country thinks and works about justice”. Directing his words at the man he ousted in a coup d’état, Mr Burnham said: “It feels fitting to be here tonight, and particularly to be with my right honourable friend, the Prime Minister. “Because I remember very clearly at the …

Colin Firth’s ex-wife Livia launches fiery attack on ‘disgusting’ Gwyneth Paltrow

Colin Firth’s ex-wife Livia launches fiery attack on ‘disgusting’ Gwyneth Paltrow

Published by Daniella Wilson

Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more Colin Firth’s ex-wife Livia has unleashed an angry tirade on Gwyneth Paltrow, after the actor and wellness entrepreneur appeared in an advert for a housing development in Israel. Ms Firth, 56, an environmental activist who advocates sustainability in the fashion industry, called out the Marty Supreme star for taking part in an advert promoting 51 Park, a 51-storey luxury housing complex in Herzliya, a city north of Tel Aviv. The development is around 90 minutes’ drive away from Gaza, and the clip has provoked criticism online, with some social media users condemning Paltrow for publicising high-end property while conflict persists in the region. Ms Firth, who was married to Ms Paltrow’s Shakespeare in Love co-star Colin from 1997 to 2019, revealed that she had …

Blue Origin Rocket Explodes in Fiery Setback

Blue Origin Rocket Explodes in Fiery Setback

Published by skeptic

Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket exploded on Thursday night during a hotfire test on the launch pad, lighting up the skies around the launch site in Cape Canaveral, Florida. In a post on X, Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos said that all personnel had been accounted for. “It’s too early to know the root cause but we’re already working to find it,” Bezos wrote. “Very rough day, but we’ll rebuild whatever needs rebuilding and get back to flying. It’s worth it.” What Is a Hotfire Test? The test during which Blue Origin’s rocket—a vehicle that, at 98 meters tall, is one of the largest ever built—exploded is known as a hotfire test, or static fire test. Essentially, it is a standard procedure carried out on the engines of a rocket, spacecraft, or prototype, in which the engines are ignited for a very short period of time and then shut down while the vehicle remains secured to the launch pad. The purpose of this test is to verify that the systems are functioning correctly before an …

Uprising by Tahmima Anam review – a fiery novel of female rebellion | Fiction

Uprising by Tahmima Anam review – a fiery novel of female rebellion | Fiction

Published by Sam Flores

‘Yes, you will leave this place,” the chorus of child protagonists in a community of sex workers say at the start of Tahmima Anam’s incantatory and fiery new novel of female defiance, Uprising. “This story will save your life,” we were told three times in Deepa Anappara’s 2020 debut, Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line, also featuring precarious children dwelling in the margins. What is the distance between imagination and action, lived realities and dreams? How can solidarities be forged in such circumstances? Uprising holds within its pages some answers and a deep conviction – for a better life, a more just world – and then reaches out and fights for it. As a journalist, Anam visited the infamous “floating brothel” Banishanta in Bangladesh; her new novel, set on an isolated island “at the end of the country, in the middle of a river that emptied into the sea”, fictionalises the island’s community and ecological precarity. Here, a generation of daughters grow up watching their mothers trapped in sex work – “we knew that the …

The Strokes end Coachella set with fiery video condemning US and Israeli bombings in Iran and Gaza

The Strokes end Coachella set with fiery video condemning US and Israeli bombings in Iran and Gaza

Published by Daniella Wilson

Get the inside track from Roisin O’Connor with our free weekly music newsletter Now Hear This Get our free music newsletter Now Hear This Get our free music newsletter Now Hear This The Strokes ended their set at weekend two of Coachella with some politically charged messaging. While the indie rock band performed their song “Oblivius” for the first time in a decade Saturday night, they showed a video montage that accused the CIA of enforcing regime change through political violence and concluded with footage of Israel bombing Gaza and the United States bombing Iran. The video on the massive LED screens alleged that the CIA has been linked to the deaths of foreign political figures, including Panama’s Military Leader Omar Torrijos, former President of Guatemala Jacobo Árbenz and former President of Ecuador Jaime Roldós Aguilera. It also gave voice to the conspiracy theory that the U.S. was involved in the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Footage of recent bombings in the Middle East were captioned, “Over 30 universities destroyed in Iran.” Another explosion …

The Strokes end Coachella set with fiery video condemning US and Israeli bombings in Iran and Gaza

The Strokes end Coachella performance with fiery political video condemning US government

Published by Daniella Wilson

Get the inside track from Roisin O’Connor with our free weekly music newsletter Now Hear This Get our free music newsletter Now Hear This Get our free music newsletter Now Hear This The Strokes ended their set at weekend two of Coachella with some politically charged messaging. While the indie rock band performed their song “Oblivius” for the first time in a decade Saturday night, they showed a video montage that accused the CIA of enforcing regime change through political violence and concluded with footage of Israel bombing Gaza and the United States bombing Iran. The video on the massive LED screens alleged that the CIA has been linked to the deaths of foreign political figures, including Panama’s Military Leader Omar Torrijos, former President of Guatemala Jacobo Árbenz and former President of Ecuador Jaime Roldós Aguilera. It also gave voice to the conspiracy theory that the U.S. was involved in the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Footage of recent bombings in the Middle East were captioned, “Over 30 universities destroyed in Iran.” Another explosion …

In fiery speech, Pope Leo says ‘Enough to war!’

In fiery speech, Pope Leo says ‘Enough to war!’

Published by Sam Flores

“DELUSION OF OMNIPOTENCE” Responsibility also fell to the “immense multitude” that rejects war, Leo said, urging them to build a “Kingdom of peace…in our homes, schools, neighbourhoods, and civil and religious communities.” “A Kingdom that counters polemics and resignation through friendship and a culture of encounter. Let us believe once again in love, moderation and good politics.”  The pope described the Kingdom of God as a “bulwark against that delusion of omnipotence that surrounds us and is becoming increasingly unpredictable and aggressive.” It also was a place with “no sword, no drone, no vengeance, no trivialisation of evil, no unjust profit, but only dignity, understanding and forgiveness.” Leo painted a grim picture of the current state of the world, “where there never seem to be enough graves, for people continue to crucify one another and eliminate life, with no regard to justice and mercy.” Pope Leo, who was elected pontiff last May following the death of his predecessor Francis, is moderate and known as a bridge-builder. But he has been increasingly denouncing the conflicts dividing …