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Intuitive Machines made history last year as the first private company to put a robot on the Moon, although the triumph was marred by the lander tipping onto its side.Now, the Houston-based firm is gearing up for a second attempt, determined to achieve a perfect touchdown.Intuitive Machines’ hexagonal-shaped lander, Athena, is set to launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at 7:16 pm Wednesday (0016 GMT Thursday) from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where the weather forecast is favorable.If all goes well, it will touch down around March 6 at the vast Mons Mouton plateau, a site closer to the lunar south pole than any previously targeted.Athena carries scientific instruments, including a drill to search for ice beneath the surface and a unique hopping drone named Grace after a famous computer scientist, Grace Hopper. It is designed to traverse the Moon’s rugged inclines, boulders, and craters — a valuable capability to support future crewed missions.Also aboard is a small rover, which will test a lunar cellular network provided by Nokia Bell Labs by relaying commands, images, and video between the lander, rover, and hopper.Intuitive Machines CEO Trent Martin spoke excitedly about the hopper, emphasizing that such drones could complement rovers in future missions going “down into extreme environments where you can’t drive.”Until recently, soft lunar landings were achieved only by a handful of well-funded national space agencies.Now, the US is working to make private missions routine through the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, a public-private collaboration aimed at delivering NASA hardware to the surface at a fraction of the cost of traditional missions.”I’m very excited to see the science that our tech demonstrations deliver as we prepare for humanity’s return to the Moon and the journey to Mars,” NASA’s Nicky Fox, told reporters, referencing the Artemis program, which aims to return astronauts to the lunar surface later this decade. – Nailing the landing -First however, Intuitive Machines will want to achieve an upright landing — a feat the company fell short of with its first lander, Odysseus, which went to space in February 2024. It caught a foot on the surface and tipped over, coming to rest at a 30-degree angle — limiting its solar power and preventing it from completing NASA experiments under a $118 million contract.This time, the price tag is $62.5 million.Landing on the Moon is challenging due to the absence of an atmosphere, which rules out the use of parachutes.Instead, spacecraft must rely on precisely controlled thruster burns to slow their descent while navigating treacherous terrain.Martin said the company had made key improvements — including better cabling for the laser altimeter, an instrument that provides altitude and velocity readings and helps select a safe landing site.Another issue the IM-1 mission faced was accurately determining its position en route to the Moon. To improve this, Intuitive Machines has enhanced coordination with NASA’s Deep Space Network (DSN) for more precise navigation.Athena’s arrival at the Moon is set to be preceded on March 2 by another private US lander, Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost, which launched on a more circuitous journey back in January, sharing a ride with Tokyo-based ispace’s Resilience lander.Also hitching a ride on this rocket will be NASA’s Lunar Trailblazer probe, which will enter orbit after a four-month journey and begin a two-year mission to study the distribution of different forms of water on the Moon.These missions come at a delicate time for NASA, amid speculation that it may scale back or cancel its astronaut program to the Moon in favor of Mars — a key goal of both President Donald Trump and his close advisor Elon Musk, SpaceX tycoon.

Michelle Trachtenberg, the actor known for roles in series including “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Gossip Girl,” has died, according to US media outlets. She was 39 years old.Police said officers responded to an emergency call just after 8:00 am local time (1300 GMT) on Wednesday, The New York Times said, where they found her in her Manhattan apartment unconscious and unresponsive.Emergency medical workers pronounced her dead without giving a cause. Police said foul play was not suspected.Citing anonymous sources, ABC News reported that the actor recently underwent a liver transplant, and was perhaps experiencing complications.New York native Trachtenberg began her career as a child star, with roles including the titular character in the 1996 film “Harriet The Spy,” which she played alongside Rosie O’Donnell.She also had credits on the Nickelodeon kids network, including on the television series “The Adventure of Pete & Pete.”Her big break came on “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” where she played Dawn, the younger sister of Sarah Michelle Gellar’s leading character.She acted on that show from 2000 to 2003.Trachtenberg later starred as the socialite villain Georgina Sparks on the hit show “Gossip Girl” from 2008 to 2012, with co-stars including Blake Lively, Penn Badgley and Leighton Meester.Her other film roles included “EuroTrip,” “17 Again” and “The Scribbler.”Trachtenberg made a number of cameos on television shows including “Weeds” and “Mercy,” appearing in the Gossip Girl reboot in 2022, what’s listed as her final acting credit.

Elon Musk starred at Donald Trump’s first cabinet meeting Wednesday, with the US president insisting his team was “thrilled” with the extraordinary power given to his billionaire advisor despite reported tensions over his sweeping government cuts.Trump asked tech tycoon Musk, who was wearing a black “Make America Great Again” baseball cap, to stand up and talk about the controversial program of his so-called Department of Government Efficiency.”If we don’t do this, America will go bankrupt,” the world’s richest man told cabinet members at the White House, adding that he was “taking a lot of flak, and getting a lot of death threats by the way.” The SpaceX and Tesla tycoon at one point said his job was “humble technical support” for Trump’s government — before opening his overcoat to reveal a black t-shirt saying “Tech Support” in large white letters.Dismissing US media reports that some cabinet members had expressed frustration over DOGE emails sent to all federal employees asking them to justify their jobs or be sacked, Musk said it was the “best cabinet ever” and thanked them for their “support”.Republican Trump, 78, also turned to the top team gathered around a huge wooden table for the first meeting of his second term, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.- ‘Throw them out’ -“Is anybody unhappy with Elon? If they are we’ll throw them out of here,” Trump said, to laughter and applause from the cabinet members.”Some disagree a little bit, but I will tell you for the most part I think everyone’s not only happy, they’re thrilled.” The DOGE emails have caused confusion across Washington, with government departments on Monday largely telling told staff to either ignore them or downplayed the risks of not answering it. Trump insisted however that employees who didn’t reply were “on the bubble” and risked losing their positions.The star role given to Musk, who is officially an advisor not a cabinet member, underscored his status as the most powerful person in Trump’s inner circle.Trump had earlier downplayed reports of tensions over his dominance, posting on his social media platform Truth Social: “ALL CABINET MEMBERS ARE EXTREMELY HAPPY WITH ELON.”The meeting — and an hour-long question and answer session with media brought in under new White House rules controlling which reporters get access to Trump — was more broadly a chance for him to tout a dramatic start to his second term.Trump proclaimed progress on negotiations to end Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, saying that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was set to visit the White House on Friday to sign a deal giving Washington access to Kyiv’s rare minerals.Trump has alarmed allies by starting direct talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin.He also revealed that he was set to impose 25 percent tariffs on many imports from key ally Europe — and proclaimed that the “European Union was created to screw the United States.” – Controversial aides -During the meeting Trump was flanked by aides openly chosen in many cases for their lavish declarations of loyalty — and for their commitment to bring in the Musk-led cuts, along with Trump’s crackdown on diversity.Many of these top figures were successfully confirmed by the Republican-controlled Senate despite unusually extensive questions over their experience or behavior.Among the most contentious are Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a noted vaccine skeptic, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who has a history of backing Kremlin talking points, and Hegseth, a former Fox News host who has faced allegations of sexual assault.And in a situation with no real parallel in modern US history, all of these powerful officials are overshadowed by Musk, who helped bankroll Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign to the tune of a quarter of a billion dollars.While classified as a mere “special government employee” and “senior adviser to the president,” the South African-born magnate is seen more often at Trump’s side than Vice President JD Vance or even First Lady Melania Trump.As owner of the X social media platform and a key leader in the US space program, his influence percolates through almost every corner of current Washington politics.

The Washington Post will no longer run views opposed to “personal liberties and free markets” on its opinion pages, owner Jeff Bezos announced Wednesday, the billionaire’s latest intervention in the major US paper’s editorial operations.The move, a major break from the norm at the Post and at most credible news media organizations worldwide, comes as US media face increasing threats to their freedom and accusations of bias from President Donald Trump.”We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets,” wrote Bezos on social media platform X.”We’ll cover other topics too of course, but viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others.”Bezos said the US capital’s premier daily did not have to provide opposing views because “the internet does that job.””If this was a regular news environment we might just raise our eyebrows at this, but this is happening at a time of unprecedented pressures for journalists working in the United States,” said Katherine Jacobsen of rights watchdog Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). In October, Bezos sparked controversy by blocking the Post’s planned endorsement of Democratic vice president Kamala Harris for the 2024 presidential election, triggering newsroom protests and subscriber cancellations.And in January, an award-winning political cartoonist for the newspaper announced her resignation after a cartoon depicting Bezos groveling before Trump was rejected.At the time, editorial page editor David Shipley defended the decision, saying it was made to avoid repeated coverage on the same topic.On Wednesday, Bezos announced Shipley would be leaving his post because he had not signed on to the new opinion pages policy.”I suggested to him that if the answer wasn’t ‘hell yes,’ then it had to be ‘no,'” said Bezos.Other Post staffers also expressed their concern.”Massive encroachment by Jeff Bezos into The Washington Post’s opinion section today — makes clear dissenting views will not be published or tolerated there,” Jeff Stein, the paper’s chief economics correspondent, wrote on X.Stein added that he had “not felt encroachment on my journalism on the news side of coverage, but if Bezos tries interfering with the news side I will be quitting immediately.”Amazon owner and world’s third-richest man Bezos, along with other US tech moguls, have appeared increasingly close to Trump since his election last year.Bezos was among a group of tech billionaires who were given prime positions at Trump’s inauguration, and he visited the Republican at his Mar-a-Lago estate during the transition period.CPJ has documented “how ownership of media companies in countries such as Hungary and Russia has really had an impact on press freedom,” the committee’s Jacobsen cautioned.”We would do well in the US to look at countries like that to see what happens when perhaps too much interest is given to owner interest versus serving the public good.”

The US Supreme Court appeared likely to rule in favor on Wednesday of an Ohio woman who claims she was the victim of “reverse discrimination” because she was passed over twice for jobs for candidates who were gay.Marlean Ames, 60, an employee of the Ohio Department of Youth Services, is asking the court to revive a lawsuit she filed under the 1964 Civil Rights Act which bars discrimination on the basis of race, religion, sex or sexual orientation.The case comes at a time when President Donald Trump and a number of major corporations are rolling back diversity and inclusion programs intended to combat systemic inequalities faced by minorities.America First Legal Foundation, a group founded by Stephen Miller, who is now the White House deputy chief of staff, filed a brief with the court in support of Ames, a straight white woman.Ames, a heterosexual woman, is arguing against lower court decisions that rejected her discrimination suit on the basis of precedent that members of majority groups must meet a higher bar for proving workplace bias than minorities.In its ruling, the US Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals said Ames had not established “background circumstances” showing that the state agency is “that unusual employer who discriminates against the majority.”The requirement that she present “background circumstances” is unconstitutional and being unfairly applied only to members of majority groups bringing job discrimination cases, Ames said.A majority of the justices on the Supreme Court, both conservatives and liberals, appeared sympathetic to the arguments made by Ames’s lawyer, Xiao Wang.”We’re in radical agreement today,” quipped Justice Neil Gorsuch, one of the six conservatives on the bench.- ‘Equal justice under law’ -Addressing Wang, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a conservative, said: “So all you want for this case is a really short opinion that says discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, whether it’s because you’re gay or because you’re straight, is prohibited?” “That’s right, your honor,” said Wang.Ames was simply seeking “four words on the side of this building — equal justice under law,” he said.”At bottom, all Ms Ames is asking for is equal justice under law, not more justice, but certainly not less, and certainly not less because of the color of her skin or because of her sex or because of her religion,” Wang added.Elliot Gaiser, the solicitor general of Ohio, arguing on behalf of the midwestern state, rejected Ames’s claims that she failed to get promotions because she was heterosexual.”She could not establish that anybody was motivated by sexual orientation or even knew her sexual orientation,” Gaiser said, or that they knew the sexual orientation of the people who obtained the jobs she was seeking.Justice Sonia Sotomayor, one of the three liberals on the nine-member court, said there was “something suspicious” about the hirings that can “give rise to an inference of discrimination.””She was a 20-year employee, great reviews, and then all of a sudden, she’s not hired, and someone’s hired who’s gay, doesn’t have her level of college experience, and didn’t even want the job,” Sotomayor said.The Supreme Court is expected to deliver its ruling in the case this summer.

US President Donald Trump on Wednesday said his administration aims to cut around 65 percent of staff at the Environmental Protection Agency, a key regulatory body that works on a range of areas, including climate change.”I spoke with Lee Zeldin and he thinks he’s going to be cutting 65 or so percent of the people from environmental,” he said, referring to the EPA administrator. The agency currently employs more than 17,000 people, of the roughly two million total US federal workforce.Trump has made slashing the size of the federal government a key priority in his first days in office, tasking Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, with aiding that effort as well as cutting government spending.The Republican ran on a platform that promised to curb environmental protection regulations, specifically those related to climate change, in order to increase economic growth.He has called climate change a “scam,” and pulled Washington out of the landmark Paris Agreement for a second time on his first day back in office.Since then, he has declared a “national energy emergency” to expand domestic oil drilling, and signed executive orders to slow the transition to electric vehicles and halt offshore wind farm projects.Zeldin, a former US congressman from New York, has committed to delivering Trump’s campaign promises, although he acknowledged last month that man-made climate change was “real.”He has said he would prioritize the EPA’s role in ensuring clean water and air, but appears set to roll back a host of other environmental regulations.”The EPA is going to aggressively pursue an agenda powering the Great American Comeback… that’s our purpose,” he said earlier this month.The new EPA administrator has appeared to embrace Musk’s government spending cut efforts, announcing on Tuesday that the agency had slashed $60 million in grants that were funding “wasteful DEI and environmental justice programs,” referring to diversity, equity and inclusion.Most scientists agree that climate change currently underway differs from natural cycles of the past. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says it is indisputably attributable to human activity, and in particular to the burning of fossil fuels, especially since the end of the 19th century.

US pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly announced Wednesday that it will build four additional new manufacturing sites in the United States in a committment designed to influence upcoming Trump administration decisions on trade and other issues.The drugmaker, which is in growth mode thanks partly to the success of anti-obesity drugs Zepbound and Mounjaro, expects to add more than 3,000 jobs at the four sites as it committed to tens of billions of dollars in additional investment.Chief Executive David Ricks said in a statement the boosted capital spending underscores the company’s “optimism about the potential of our pipeline” and determination to “stay ahead of anticipated demand for safe, high-quality, FDA-approved medicines of the future.”The move, announced at a Washington news conference, comes as Trump proceeds with a deluge of tariff actions and proposed tax cut extensions designed to incentivize global companies to invest in the United States. Trump’s administration is also undertaking deep job cuts across the US regulatory universe that could affect such processes as the application for new drugs.The company’s press release described Trump’s 2017 corporate tax cut as “foundational to Lilly’s domestic manufacturing investments,” adding that “it is essential that these policies are extended this year.”In an interview with CNBC, Ricks said he would call on the Trump administration to address lengthy permitting times to build new facilities due to onerous requirements of the US Food and Drug Administration.Ricks also aims to influence the “contours” of Trump’s trade policy, saying “it makes no sense to punish companies that are pursuing this agenda with the administration and on behalf of the American people.”Wednesday’s announcement will raise Lilly’s domestic capital expansion commitment to $50 billion from $23 billion previously committed between 2020 and 2024 to construct or expand sites in the states of North Carolina, Indiana and Wisconsin.The company is “currently in negotiations with several states and welcomes additional interest by  March 12, 2025,” said a press release that included a link to express interest online.Shares of Lilly rose 1.7 percent shortly after midday.

Online retail behemoth Amazon on Wednesday announced a new version of its Alexa voice assistant that is powered by generative artificial intelligence, giving the device more human-like qualities.”I’m not just an assistant. I’m your new best friend in the digital world,” Alexa Plus told the audience at a New York launch event.The upgrade comes amid fierce competition in the AI assistant market. Microsoft now offers an audio version of Copilot, Google has launched its Gemini AI, and Apple continues working to enhance Siri with generative AI capabilities.Though the market leaders, Alexa and Siri have been struggling to deliver more intuitive interactions and the companies have long promised increased performance with the use of generative AI. The rollout comes as tech giants including Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Meta, OpenAI and Elon Musk’s xAI are investing billions in AI development despite uncertain returns.The tech juggernauts are trying to expand the everyday use of AI, and Amazon can count on a base of over 600 million installed devices already equipped with its 10-year-old service.Panos Panay, senior vice president of devices and services at Amazon, said that Alexa Plus opens a new age for voice devices.”Until this moment… we have been limited by technology,” Panay, a former Microsoft executive, said at the event.For now Alexa is mostly used for relatively simple tasks, such as playing music, giving the weather forecast or turning on the lights in a room. Alexa Plus’s capabilities are closer to that of a virtual agent, capable of performing actions on command.This launch is “taking AI to the masses,” said analyst Paolo Pescatore of PP Foresight, adding that there was “a lot riding on this revamp.” “The biggest question is whether users are ready, given their early experiences and concerns around security and trust. These factors still remain huge barriers to wider adoption,” he added.Demonstrations at the event showed Alexa Plus performing tasks like booking concert tickets, sending text messages, planning trips, updating shared calendars, and even analyzing security camera footage to determine if someone had walked the dog.Benefiting from the new functionalities of generative AI, Alexa Plus can create, at a child’s request, a made up story with the characters of his or her choice, or produce a song in tribute to a pet.In one showcase, the assistant composed and performed a song about a cat using Suno, a music generation service currently facing lawsuits from major music labels.The new offering includes access through Alexa.com and a dedicated phone app, allowing users to upload documents for feedback similar to ChatGPT or Google’s Gemini. Alexa Plus will launch in the United States in April for $19.99 monthly, with free access for Amazon Prime subscribers.

The Washington Post will no longer run views opposed to “personal liberties and free markets” on its opinion pages, its owner Jeff Bezos announced on Wednesday, the latest intervention by the billionaire in the major US paper’s editorial operations.”We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets,” wrote Bezos on social media platform X.”We’ll cover other topics too of course, but viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others.”The move, a major break from the norm on opinion pages at the Post and at most credible news media organizations worldwide, comes as US media face increasing threats to their freedom and accusations of bias from President Donald Trump.In October, Bezos sparked controversy by blocking the Post’s planned endorsement of Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris for the 2024 presidential election, triggering newsroom protests and subscriber cancellations.And in January, an award-winning political cartoonist for the newspaper announced her resignation after a cartoon depicting Bezos groveling before Trump was rejected. At the time, editorial page editor David Shipley defended the decision, saying it was made to avoid repeated coverage on the same topic.On Wednesday, Bezos announced Shipley would be leaving his post because he had not signed on to the new opinion pages policy.”I suggested to him that if the answer wasn’t ‘hell yes,’ then it had to be ‘no,'” said Bezos.Other Post staffers also expressed their concern.”Massive encroachment by Jeff Bezos into The Washington Post’s opinion section today — makes clear dissenting views will not be published or tolerated there,” said Jeff Stein, the paper’s chief economics correspondent, on X.Stein added that he had “not felt encroachment on my journalism on the news side of coverage, but if Bezos tries interfering with the news side I will be quitting immediately.”Amazon owner and world’s third-richest man Bezos, along with other US tech moguls, have appeared increasingly close to Trump since his election last year.Bezos was among a group of tech billionaires who were given prime positions at Trump’s inauguration, and he visited the Republican at his Mar-a-Lago estate during the transition period.In his post on Wednesday, Bezos said the Post did not have to provide opposing views because “the internet does that job.”

Sales of new US homes slumped more than expected in January, government data showed Wednesday, with cold weather and stubborn cost-of-living pressures weighing on buyers as Donald Trump returned to office.New home sales came in at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 657,000, 10.5 percent down from December’s revised level of 734,000.This was significantly lower than the 681,000 figure a Briefing.com consensus of analysts expected, as bad weather kept potential homebuyers home and mortgage rates remained elevated.Sales of new properties have been helped in recent years as existing homeowners have been reluctant to enter the market with interest rates high.This has pushed some buyers towards new properties — new home sales hit their highest in three years in 2024.But there are risks to sales and residential investment this year, noted Ryan Sweet, chief US economist at Oxford Economics, in a note.This is due to “high mortgage rates, potential for tariffs on imported building materials from Canada and Mexico along with potential labor supply issues stemming from the Trump administration’s immigration policies,” he noted.On the upside, inventories are not an issue, Sweet said, adding that builders could still boost sales via incentives.The Federal Reserve rapidly lifted the benchmark lending rate in 2022 to curb surging inflation but has since started to cautiously lower it.In January, the median sales cost for new houses was $446,300, a pick-up from December’s figure and the highest in more than two years.Demand for new homes appears to be flagging, analysts at Pantheon Macroeconomics said in a recent note.”Sales likely were also weighed down by the weather; last month was the coldest January since 1988,” Pantheon added.