Month: November 2022

The historic Artemis I mission took flight in the early hours of Wednesday morning after months of anticipation. The milestone event kicked off a journey that will send an uncrewed spacecraft around the moon, paving the way for NASA to return astronauts to the lunar surface for the first time in half a century. The towering, 322-foot-tall (98-meter-tall) Space Launch System, or SLS, rocket lit its engines at 1:47 a.m. ET. It emitted up to 9 million pounds (4.1 million kilograms) of thrust to haul itself off the launchpad in Florida and into the air, streaking vibrantly across the night sky. Atop the rocket is the Orion spacecraft, a gumdrop-shaped capsule that broke away from the rocket after reaching space. Orion is designed to carry humans, but its passengers for this test mission are ...

  Former President Donald Trump, aiming to become only the second commander-in-chief ever elected to two nonconsecutive terms, announced Tuesday night that he will seek the Republican presidential nomination in 2024. “In order to make America great and glorious again, I am tonight announcing my candidacy for president of the United States,” Trump told a crowd gathered at Mar-a-Lago, his waterfront estate in Florida, where his campaign will be headquartered. Surrounded by allies, advisers, and conservative influencers, Trump delivered a relatively subdued speech, rife with spurious and exaggerated claims about his four years in office. To evoke nostalgia for his time in office among Republicans who have shown signs of Trump fatigue following the midterms, he frequently contrasted his fir...

Republican senators are grappling to find the reasons why they failed to take back the Senate in the 2022 midterm elections despite President Joe Biden’s unpopularity and fears about the state of the US economy, saying on Monday that candidate recruitment and Donald Trump’s election lies hurt their ability to gain power. At the same time, Senate GOP leaders are pressing forward with a mid-week vote to affirm their control of the conference, even though some conservatives are pushing for changes at the top. Florida Sen. Rick Scott, the chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, told CNN’s Manu Raju that he has not yet decided whether he will challenge Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell, the longest-serving Senate Republican leader. For months, McConnell and Scott warred over how th...

The House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, Capitol Hill insurrection said former President Donald Trump has “failed to comply” with its subpoena for documents and testimony. “In the days ahead, the committee will evaluate next steps in the litigation and regarding the former President’s noncompliance,” Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson and GOP Rep. Liz Cheney, who serve as chair and vice chair of the committee respectively, said in a statement. The committee has previously held witnesses in contempt of Congress for defying the panel’s subpoenas but has little ability to force compliance with the subpoena quickly through the courts. Trump sued the committee on November 11 as a way to challenge its subpoena according to filings in a federal court in Florida. His lawsuit s...

Democrat Katie Hobbs will win Arizona’s governor’s race, CNN projects, defeating one of the most prominent defenders of former President Donald Trump’s lies about the 2020 election. Calling the 2020 election rigged, Republican Kari Lake had repeatedly said she would not have certified Joe Biden’s win in Arizona in 2020. Hobbs, as Arizona’s secretary of state, had rejected GOP lies about the election. Lake’s defeat follows the defeat of two other high-profile election deniers in the state – Republican Senate nominee Blake Masters and secretary of state nominee Mark Finchem. “Democracy is worth the wait,” Hobbs tweeted after the race was called Monday night. “Thank you, Arizona. I am so honored and so proud to be your next Governor.” Lake did not acknowledge Hobbs’ victory, instead tweet...

A US regulator says it is watching events at Twitter with "deep concern" after the platform's top privacy and compliance officers reportedly quit. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) said new chief executive Elon Musk was "not above the law". Separately, Mr Musk reportedly told employees that bankruptcy is not out of the question for Twitter. The company has been in disarray since Mr Musk started firing thousands of employees last week. The ability for users to buy verified status as part of a new subscription has raised concerns that Twitter could be swamped with fake accounts. On Thursday, Yoel Roth, who had been Twitter's head of trust and safety, updated his profile on the social media platform to indicate that he was no longer in t...