TV News LIES

The last time I saw Laura Grego was in a tent in a baking field on the Welsh borders in May. The conversation on stage ranged from the dangers of space debris to how the law of the sea might pertain to outer space; from our sense of the sacred to our interplanetary futures. At one point Grego, a physicist, said intently, “People have to be aware of what is happening in space. Public knowledge has to catch up.” Three weeks later, SpaceX launched on the stock exchange, temporarily making Elon Musk the world’s first trillionaire.

So, I ask her now, what is it that we should all know? Well, she says, the average person’s experience of space is about to change. If, so far, that has been “looking at the stars and being full of wonder, full of connection with the universe”, perhaps noticing the occasional streaking object that was not a shooting star, now “there are plans for tens of thousands more satellites, which would really change your relationship with what you see in the sky”. SpaceX, specifically, has just applied to a federal regulator for permission to launch up to 1m of them.

Grego, who is now back in the US and speaking to me on screen from Cambridge, Massachusetts, has an unforced warmth and urgency, and a lack of self-aggrandisement in striking contrast to the gung-ho attitude that seems to accompany so much discussion of space. She became a physicist when she arrived at university and looked for the hardest thing she could find to study, so as to get her time’s worth (“a very midwestern perspective”). Then she became an observational cosmologist, which she found she loved. This merged with her other life as an activist (“anti-war, workers’ rights, racial justice – all the things important for a better society”) when she became research director of the Global Security programme at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

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Tropical Storm Bertha formed Monday evening in the Gulf of Mexico south of the Florida Panhandle as it drifts erratically toward populated coastal areas, bringing a threat of heavy rain, storm surge and damaging wind gusts.

Meanwhile, in the eastern Pacific Ocean, Hurricane Fausto formed far from Mexico’s Baja California peninsula and posed no threat to land Monday night.

The center of Bertha was located about 110 miles (180 km) south of Panama City, Florida. Maximum sustained winds were around 40 mph, according to an evening advisory from the Miami-based National Hurricane Center.

The slow-moving storm has been drifting erratically, but is expected to stay near or along the northern Gulf coast early this week, bringing heavy rainfall to areas of northern Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana as it pushes westward toward Texas. Forecasters said some additional strengthening is expected in the coming hours.

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Nicaragua’s long-serving president, Daniel Ortega, has said the country will hold no further elections to prevent the opposition from coming to power.

The 80-year-old authoritarian leader, who has been in office since 2007, also said he would work with the congress he controls to pass new laws that would “build a wall” against the opposition.

Ortega made the announcement on Sunday during the official ceremony marking the 47th anniversary of the 1979 Sandinista revolution, in which he helped overthrow the brutal dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza.

Although his administration and that of his wife and “co-president”, Rosario Murillo, had already been marked by the steady erosion of democracy in the Central American country, many are describing his announcement as a significant rhetorical escalation.

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Five people have died in a river in Ohio after several of them went into the water to help another person who was struggling to swim, authorities said Monday.

A motorist called 911 after spotting a frightened child who had been with the group and was running on a nearby road, Delaware county sheriff Jeffrey Balzer said at a news conference on Monday.

Two children under age 10 have been placed in the care of family services, the sheriff said, including the child who ran for help.

The group had gathered on Sunday along the Scioto River in the Columbus suburb of Powell when one of them went into the river to go swimming.

“And that’s when the tragedy started to occur,” Balzer said, as the others who jumped in to help also began struggling.

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President Donald Trump took executive action on July 20 to impose a new 50% tariff on a wide range of imports from Canada in retaliation to what his administration called "discriminatory" Canadian trade practices in certain industries against the United States, according to administration officials.

The move, which risks further reigniting a trade war between Canada and the U.S., comes after Trump threatened tariffs against the country in response to smoke that entered the U.S. from raging wildfires in Canada. An administration official said Trump is exploring different tariff options for the wildfire response, however.

The sweeping tariffs, which go into effect in 30 days, apply to a range of Canadian imports ‒ from wine and dairy to hockey sticks to cement, an official said ‒ but do not extend to energy, potash, fish and critical minerals, among other exemptions. All other Canadian exports, including those singled out as tariff-free in the United States-Canada-Mexico agreement signed in 2019, are subject to the tariff.

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The confirmed U.S. military death toll in the war with Iran rose to 17 after two American soldiers were killed in Jordan, the Pentagon announced July 19.

The service members were identified as 1st Lt. Tyler James Feehan, 25, of Ewa Beach, Hawaii, and Pvt. Isabella Gonzales, 19, of Carrollton, Texas. Their deaths are the latest in a conflict that has claimed American lives across the Middle East since March, while President Donald Trump said the U.S. military campaign has left Iran "very badly damaged" with "very little left" militarily.

Shortly after announcing the fatalities, U.S. Central Command, or CENTCOM, said it launched another round of strikes against Iran.

"The strikes will continue degrading Iranian military capabilities used to attack commercial vessels and civilian mariners transiting the Strait of Hormuz," CENTCOM said in a post on X.

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The United States military has announced the death of a third American solder in recent days, saying he was killed in northern Iraq “during a controlled detonation of unexploded ordnance” from a downed Iranian drone.

In a statement on Sunday, US Central Command (CENTCOM) said the soldier died on July 18 and that a second service member suffered mild injuries during the detonation.

It did not identify the victims.

The death on Saturday brought the number of US service members killed since the US and Israel launched their war on Iran to 17. The war began on February 28.

Two other US service members were killed in Iranian strikes in Jordan on Friday, while a third went missing. CENTCOM said on Sunday that unidentified remains have been found at the location and an examination process was under way to identify them.

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President Volodymyr Zelensky announced he expects to hold “key conversations” on Monday to formulate a strategy aimed at concluding the war, following a weekend of extensive consultations with military commanders.

In his evening video address on Sunday, July 19, Zelensky stated that the priority is evaluating active operations and establishing a future strategy to compel a conclusion to the conflict on terms acceptable to Ukraine.

“This has various components, and I want to hear how the commanders in our Defense and Security Forces see it,” Zelensky said. “Tomorrow I have key conversations. Ukraine must achieve its goals, and it will.”

The president noted that over the weekend, he held discussions regarding the situation on the front line and broader military strategy with several experienced military personnel.

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