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Efforts to get more Americans vaccinated against Covid-19 are growing more urgent as an expert warns that if vaccination rates don’t increase, the dangerous Delta variant could continue to evolve. “The next variant is just around the corner, if we do not all get vaccinated,” Adm. Brett Giroir, the coronavirus testing czar under President Trump, told CNN. A surge in the Delta variant combined with low vaccination rates has sent the US backward in the pandemic, and messages from President Biden’s health officials have sometimes been muddled or contradictory. Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ battle with Biden is only complicating matters in a state that has seen coronavirus-related hospitalizations rise 13% from their previous peak in July 2020. Globally, the picture is bleak too. The Delta variant is ravaging the world and pushing Southeast Asian nations to the breaking point.
07:27 – Source: CNN
CNN tracked down a super-spreader of Covid-19 misinformation. See how he reacted
At least 10 people were killed and 20 others taken to hospitals after a van crashed yesterday on a highway near Encino, Texas, a state Department of Public Safety spokesperson said. There were 30 people inside a white Ford passenger van when the driver tried to make a right turn and “veered off the roadway and struck a metal utility pole and stop sign,” Sgt. Nathan Brandley told CNN. The driver and nine passengers were pronounced deceased at the scene, the department said. At least some of those in the van were believed to be undocumented immigrants, officials told CNN affiliate KRGV.
KRGV
Ebrahim Raisi is set to be inaugurated today as Iran’s next president, signaling the start of a new harder-line era that could herald major shifts in the Islamic Republic’s policies at home and abroad. After eight years of Hassan Rouhani’s moderate administration, Iran now turns to Raisi, an ultra-conservative judiciary chief whose views are fully in line with the thinking of the country’s powerful clergy and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the final say on all major matters of state. Raisi’s inauguration comes at a pivotal time, with Iran in indirect negotiations with the United States over how to revive the 2015 nuclear agreement.
03:26 – Source: CNN
Iran’s president-elect delivers first speech to supporters
Mexico has filed a lawsuit against 11 gun manufacturers over firearms that flow from the United States across the border and into criminal hands in Mexico, court documents obtained by CNN show. The suit was filed in federal court in Boston and aims “to put an end to the massive damage that the Defendants cause by actively facilitating the unlawful trafficking of their guns to drug cartels and other criminals in Mexico.” Mexico alleges the defendants design, market, distribute and sell guns in ways that routinely arm drug cartels in Mexico. “Defendants design these guns to be easily modified to fire automatically and to be readily transferable on the criminal market in Mexico,” the suit read. Smith & Wesson, Colt and Glock are among named defendants. The companies did not respond immediately to CNN’s request for comment.
03:00 – Source: CNN
Sandy Hook families suing gunmakers
Microsoft founder Bill Gates says he regrets the time he spent with Jeffrey Epstein. “It was a huge mistake to spend time with him, to give him the credibility of being there,” Gates said. Epstein, the wealthy financial manager who was accused of child sex trafficking, was found dead in a New York jail cell in 2019. Speaking yesterday with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, Gates said he only met with Epstein in the hopes of raising more money to deal with global health issues. “I had several dinners with him, you know, hoping that what he said about getting billions of philanthropy for global health through contacts that he had might emerge,” Gates said. “When it looked like that wasn’t a real thing, that relationship ended.”
02:26 – Source: CNN
Bill Gates opens up to Anderson Cooper about his divorce
Star Wars hotel comes with out-of-this-world price tag
You might need more than the Force to be with you if you’re staying here. You may have to shell out $6,000 for two nights. Ouch.
01:32 – Source: CNN
Rise of the Resistance opens at Hollywood Studios
Australian Olympians criticized for ‘excessive alcohol consumption’
Hubble captured an image of three galaxies in a tug-of-war millions of light-years from Earth. This system is known as Arp 195 and was included in the Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies.
Photos: 31 years of Hubble telescope images
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ESA/STScI/NASA
Hubble took this image of the rare blue variable star AG Carinae, located 20,000 light-years away from Earth in the Milky Way galaxy, to celebrate the 31st anniversary of its launch. The star has experienced several explosions that created its distinctive halo.
Photos: 31 years of Hubble telescope images
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NASA
The Orion Nebula is 1,500 light-years from Earth and is located inOrion’s Belt in the constellation Orion. It’s one of the brightest nebulae — and on a clear, dark night it’s visible to the naked eye. The nebula is Earth’s nearest star-forming region.
Photos: 31 years of Hubble telescope images
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NASA
The Hubble Space Telescope was launched from the space shuttle Discovery on April 24, 1990.
Photos: 31 years of Hubble telescope images
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NASA
Hubble has given us many images of our neighbor Mars. This image was taken in 2003 when Mars made its closest approach in nearly 60,000 years. On August 27, 2003, the two worlds were only 34.6 million miles apart from center to center. By contrast, Mars can be about 249 million miles away from Earth.
Photos: 31 years of Hubble telescope images
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NASA
Hubble snapped this image in 2007 of Ganymede appearing to peek out from beneath Jupiter. Ganymede is the largest moon in our solar system, and it’s even bigger than Mercury.
Photos: 31 years of Hubble telescope images
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NASA
Hubble captured this image of Saturn in 2004, a view so sharp that some of the planet’s smaller rings are visible.
Photos: 31 years of Hubble telescope images
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NASA
Hubble tracked clouds on Uranus in this image taken in 1997. The image is a composite of three near-infrared images. The planet’s rings are prominent in the near infrared. Eight of Uranus’ 27 moons can be seen in both images. Uranus is about 1.75 billion miles from Earth.
Photos: 31 years of Hubble telescope images
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NASA
Hubble captured this image of the distant blue-green world Neptune in 2005. Fourteen different colored filters were used to help scientists learn more about Neptune’s atmosphere. Neptune is about 2.8 billion miles from Earth.
Photos: 31 years of Hubble telescope images
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NASA
Hubble discovered four of Pluto’s five moons. In 2005: Nix and Hydra were found. Hubble discovered Kerberos in 2011 and Styx in 2012. The new discoveries joined Pluto’s large moon, Charon, which was discovered in 1978. Styx was found by scientists using Hubble to search for potential hazards for the New Horizons spacecraft which flew by Pluto in July 2015. Pluto is about 2.9 billion miles from Earth.
Photos: 31 years of Hubble telescope images
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NASA
The iconic Horsehead Nebula is a favorite target for astronomers. Look carefully and you’ll see what looks like the head of a horse rising into the stars. This Hubble image captures the nebula in infrared wavelengths. The nebula is 1,600 light-years from Earth.
Photos: 31 years of Hubble telescope images
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NASA
The Cat’s Eye Nebula is a bunch of glowing gases kicked out into space by a dying star. This Hubble Space Telescope image shows details of structures including jets of high-speed gas and unusual knots of gas. This color picture is a composite of three images taken at different wavelengths. The nebula is estimated to be 1,000 years old. It’s about 3,000 light years from Earth in the constellation Draco.
Photos: 31 years of Hubble telescope images
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NASA
The Bug, or Butterfly Nebula looks like a butterfly with its wings stretching across the galaxy. It’s actually a cloud of roiling gas shed by a dying star. Scientists say the gas is more than 36,000 degrees Fahrenheit and is expanding into space at more than 600,000 miles an hour. This image was taken with Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3, a camera installed on Hubble during its May 2009 upgrade by shuttle astronauts. The nebula is about 3,800 light years away in the constellation Scorpius.
Photos: 31 years of Hubble telescope images
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NASA
Astronomers combined several Hubble images taken in 2014 to create an upgraded view of the Hubble’s iconic 1995 “Pillars of Creation” image. The new image shows a wider view of the pillars, which stretch about 5 light-years high. The pillars are part of a small region of the Eagle Nebula, which is about 6,500 light years from Earth.
Photos: 31 years of Hubble telescope images
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NASA
This huge nebula is 7,500 light years from Earth in the constellation Carina. It’s one of the largest and brightest nebulas and is a nursery for new stars. It also has several stars estimated to be at least 50 to 100 times the mass of our Sun, including Eta Carinae, one of the brightest stars known and one of the most massive stars in the Milky Way Galaxy.
Photos: 31 years of Hubble telescope images
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NASA
One of the closest neighbors to our own Milky Way, the Andromeda Galaxy, can be seen with the naked eye if you know where to look on a clear, dark night. In 2012, scientists using data from Hubble predicted Andromeda would collide with the Milky Way in about four billion years. Andromeda is 2.5 million light years from Earth.
Photos: 31 years of Hubble telescope images
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NASA
The Cigar Galaxy is 12 million light years away. It gets its name from its shape: From Earth it looks like an elongated elliptical disc.
Photos: 31 years of Hubble telescope images
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NASA
It’s called one of the most photogenic galaxies: The Sombrero Galaxy looks like the giant broad rim of a Mexican hat sitting out among the stars. It can be spotted using a small telescope. It’s about 28 million light years from Earth.
Photos: 31 years of Hubble telescope images
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NASA
This group of galaxies is about 290 million light years from Earth. It’s named for its discoverer, French astronomer Edouard Stephan, who first spotted it in 1877.
Photos: 31 years of Hubble telescope images
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NASA
Hubble captured this image of a group of interacting galaxies called Arp 273. The bigger galaxy has a center disk that is distorted into a rose-like shape by the pull from its partner below.
Photos: 31 years of Hubble telescope images
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NASA
In 2004, astronomers unveiled the deepest portrait of the visible universe ever taken to date. Called the Hubble Ultra-Deep Field, the million-second-long exposure shows the first galaxies to emerge shortly after the Big Bang. The image shows an estimated 10,000 galaxies. In 2012, astronomers assembled an upgraded image called the Hubble eXtreme Deep Field. It combined 10 years of Hubble Space Telescope photographs taken of a patch of sky at the center of the original Hubble Ultra-Deep Field. The new image contains about 5,500 galaxies.
Photos: 31 years of Hubble telescope images
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NASA
This 2018 Hubble image shows the Lagoon Nebula, a chaotic nursery full of baby stars. At the center of this image, a young star 200,000 times brighter than our sun blasts out ultraviolet radiation.
Photos: 31 years of Hubble telescope images
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NASA
Even stars like to blow bubbles. This 2016 image shares Hubble’s view of the Bubble Nebula, where a superhot, massive star is blowing a giant bubble into space. The nebula is 7 light-years across.
Photos: 31 years of Hubble telescope images
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NASA
The Cone Nebula is a turbulent star-forming pillar of gas and dust. It’s 7 light-years long, but this image taken by Hubble in 2002 shows the top 2.5 light-years (which equals 23 million round trips to the moon). Ultraviolet radiation causes the hydrogen gas to emit an eerie red glow.
Photos: 31 years of Hubble telescope images
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NASA
This is a detailed look at the section of a slowly expanding supernova, or the remains of an exploded star. Hubble took this image in 2015 of the Veil Nebula 2,100 light-years away. The star was once 20 times more massive than our sun, but only wisps of gas remain.
Photos: 31 years of Hubble telescope images
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NASA
In 2009, NASA’s Great Observatories, including Hubble along with the Spitzer Space Telescope and the Chandra X-ray Observatory, combined their observational power to create this unprecedented composite image of our Milky Way galaxy’s center. Infrared and X-ray light captured by the telescopes can be seen here. Hubble’s contributions are in yellow, Spitzer’s observations are in red and Chandra’s are blue and violet.
Photos: 31 years of Hubble telescope images
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NASA
Hubble also teamed up with Spitzer to create this stunning image of the Orion Nebula in 2006. The image combines visible, infrared and ultraviolet light. A community of massive stars is represented by the yellow at the heart of the image.
Photos: 31 years of Hubble telescope images
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NASA
Hubble captured this view of an expanding light halo around the star V838 Monocerotis in 2004.
Photos: 31 years of Hubble telescope images
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NASA
M83 is a nearby spiral galaxy, and this 2014 Hubble image showcases its thousands of clusters of stars and supernova remnants. The young stars can be seen in pink bubbles of hydrogen gas.
Photos: 31 years of Hubble telescope images
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NASA
This infrared light image taken by Hubble in 2014 shows the Monkey Head Nebula, where starbirth is occurring 6,400 light-years away from us. Dust clouds and glowing gas swirl together here, representing the ingredients for forming stars.
Photos: 31 years of Hubble telescope images
PHOTO:
NASA
This ultraviolet light observation of the giant Eta Carinae star was taken by Hubble in 2019. The star is the larger out of two that orbit each other. It’s known to have violent outbursts, as evidenced by the bubbles here.
Photos: 31 years of Hubble telescope images
PHOTO:
NASA
Fireworks are even more beautiful in space. Hubble captured this image of a giant cluster of 3,000 stars in 2015. It’s called Westerlund 2, located 20,000 light-years away from Earth.
Lizzo is pregnant with Captain America’s baby … right?
Simone Biles has thanked a Japanese gym for allowing her to privately train and overcome her struggle with “the twisties,” a mental block in gymnastics where competitors lose track of their positioning midair. Biles said she would “forever be thankful” to Juntendo University “for allowing me to come train separately to try to get my skills back.”
That’s Rihanna’s estimated net worth, according to Forbes. It makes her the wealthiest female musician and the second-richest woman in entertainment behind Oprah Winfrey.
“I believe mentorship is one way to help women regain confidence and rebuild their economic strength.”
To mark her 40th birthday, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, has launched a mentorship program to support women getting back into the workforce after the pandemic. The duchess has asked 40 activists, athletes, artists and world leaders to participate.
01:28 – Source: CNN
See Prince Harry’s sneaky cameo in Meghan’s birthday video