Thomas Hawk posted a photo:
De vier astronauten landden zaterdagnacht veilig in de Stille Oceaan na een historische vlucht om de maan.
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hiroya.uga has added a photo to the pool:
A lone cherry tree in Ushinshiro, Shizuoka, illuminated by the first light of the day.
This is Mizumezakura, a single cherry tree standing quietly in the countryside.
I came here on my first photography trip, invited by a friend who taught me how to shoot.
We arrived before sunrise and waited quietly for this light.
SAN DIEGO (ANP) - De vier astronauten van de Artemis II-missie zijn na tien dagen teruggekeerd van hun ruimtereis. Het Orion-ruimtevaartuig waarmee zij achter de maan vlogen, landde om 02.07 uur Nederlandse tijd voor de kust van de Californische stad San Diego in de Stille Oceaan.
Zodra de astronauten met boten zijn opgehaald, worden ze medisch onderzocht om te evalueren welke impact de reis op hun lichaam heeft gehad. Missiecommandant Reid Wiseman meldde volgens NASA vlak na de landing dat hij en zijn crew het "uitstekend" maken.
Amerikanen Wiseman (50), Victor Glover (49) en Christina Koch (47) en de Canadees Jeremy Hansen (50) begonnen op 1 april aan hun vlucht. Het was de eerste keer sinds december 1972 dat mensen richting het hemellichaam vlogen.
He has finished in the points at the last two F1 races and will be looking to stay ahead of team mate Arvid Lindblad.
McIlroy skipped PGA Tour events to practise at Augusta
Defending champion has six-shot lead after two rounds
Rory McIlroy has explained how scouting trips to Augusta National in the weeks leading up to the Masters have played a significant role in his domination of this staging of the major. McIlroy’s second round of 65 – which included six birdies in the closing seven holes – set a Masters record, with the defending champion the first man to lead the tournament by six at the halfway point.
Entering the Masters, it was assumed McIlroy’s three-week break from PGA Tour business was to conserve energy. Instead, he made smart use of his private jet as he looks to become just the fourth golfer to win back-to-back Masters titles.
Continue reading...Kremlin orders temporary truce from Saturday afternoon until Sunday, a 32-hour period during which Russia would stop fighting ‘in all directions’. What we know on day 1,508
Ukrainians on Friday were wary of Russia’s pledge to pause fighting for an Orthodox Easter ceasefire – first proposed by Kyiv – this weekend. The Kremlin said it had ordered a temporary truce to be in effect from Saturday afternoon until the end of Sunday, a 32-hour period during which Russia would stop fighting “in all directions”. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy – who has repeatedly called for a ceasefire in the four-year war – said Kyiv was willing to reciprocate.
But in Kyiv there was scepticism over whether Moscow would keep to its promise. “No one believes in these fairytales anymore,” Yevgeniy Lamakh, an IT specialist, told AFP in central Kyiv. “The Russian military lie a lot, usually, as history shows. And in general, they say one thing, but in fact do something completely different,” the 29-year-old said. “Even today... Shaheds, missiles are flying at Ukraine. Well, come on then, start the ceasefire,” Dmytro Sova, a 42-year-old actor, told AFP in Kyiv on Friday.
Just hours before the Orthodox Easter truce, two night-time Russian attacks in Ukraine left one dead and 15 injured, authorities said. The fatal attacks included an “enemy drone attack” on a store and a cafe in the central town of Poltava, killing one person and injuring another, the regional head of the military administration, Vitalii Diakivnych, posted on Telegram. In the north-eastern region of Sumy, bordering Russia, drone strikes on residential areas wounded 14 people including a 14-year-old boy and an 87-year-old woman, according to Oleg Grygorov, head of the regional military administration there, via Telegram.
Moscow has rejected calls for a longer-term unconditional ceasefire, something that Kyiv has called for, saying it is instead pushing for a final peace settlement. Negotiations between the two sides, brokered by the United States, have stalled over the fate of Ukraine’s eastern regions, partly occupied by Russia and that Moscow wants Kyiv to cede. The two sides also held a ceasefire for the Orthodox Easter last year. But the respite comes amid deadlocked efforts to halt Russia’s invasion, with US attention now focused on the Middle East war.
US president Donald Trump’s administration is likely to extend as soon as Friday a waiver allowing countries to buy some sanctioned Russian oil and petroleum products, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters. The US treasury department has allowed purchases of Russian oil and products at sea since mid-March with a 30-day waiver that expires on 11 April, part of efforts to control global energy prices during the US-Israeli war with Iran. The waivers have been criticised by politicians in the US and abroad as they could complicate the West’s efforts to deprive Russia of revenue for its war in Ukraine and put Washington at odds with its allies.
A Russian court on Friday placed a journalist from the independent Novaya Gazeta newspaper in pre-trial detention until 10 May, a day after police raided the paper’s Moscow headquarters. Oleg Roldugin was arrested on Thursday. He had reported on alleged corruption among top Russian officials including former president Dmitry Medvedev and Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov. Russia has waged a crackdown on independent news outlets since launching its offensive on Ukraine in February 2022.
Nato member Estonia will refrain from detaining Russia’s “shadow fleet” vessels in the Baltic Sea, worried that seizing oil tankers and other ships sanctioned by the West could lead Moscow to defend them militarily, a senior commander said on Friday. Britain and other European nations, including France, Belgium and Sweden, have stepped up efforts to detain ageing tankers used by Moscow to secure vital funding for its four-year war against Ukraine. But Estonia, the northernmost Baltic state located close to Russia’s main oil and fuel export facilities in the Gulf of Finland, is practicing restraint after an unsuccessful attempt to board a Russian vessel last year.
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Bruce66423 shares a report from the Guardian: The European parliament has blocked the extension of a law that permits big tech firms to scan for child sexual exploitation on their platforms, creating a legal gap that child safety experts say will lead to crimes going undetected. The law, which was a carve-out of the EU Privacy Act, was put in place in 2021 as a temporary measure allowing companies to use automated detection technologies to scan messages for harms, including child sexual abuse material (CSAM), grooming and sextortion. However, it expired on April 3, and the EU parliament decided not to vote to extend it, amid privacy concerns from some lawmakers.
The regulatory gap has created uncertainty for big tech companies, because while scanning for harms on their platforms is now illegal, they still remain liable to remove any illegal content hosted on their platforms under a different law, the Digital Services Act. Google, Meta, Snap and Microsoft said they would continue to voluntarily scan their platforms for CSAM, in a joint statement posted on a Google blog. Bruce66423 adds: "Child abuse as the excuse for avoiding privacy protections. Who would have thought it?"
The regulatory gap has created uncertainty for big tech companies, because while scanning for harms on their platforms is now illegal, they still remain liable to remove any illegal content hosted on their platforms under a different law, the Digital Services Act. Google, Meta, Snap and Microsoft said they would continue to voluntarily scan their platforms for CSAM, in a joint statement posted on a Google blog. Bruce66423 adds: "Child abuse as the excuse for avoiding privacy protections. Who would have thought it?"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
This illustrated book was created for a story written by Ruth Loosi and published by Baeschlin Publishing House in Switzerland. The story follows a young girl, Lisa, spending a late summer day with her mother and little brother. As they wait for the sun to appear in the sky, her mother suggests transforming the kitchen into a playful beauty salon. From this simple moment, the narrative unfolds into a gentle flow of conversations and fantasies, where Lisa reflects on the sun, the planets, and her dreams about the future. While reading the text, I found myself drawn less to the physical action or setting, and more to the emotional atmosphere it created. The story resonated with memories of childhood and the quiet, imaginative worlds many children build for themselves. I connected deeply with Lisa's dreams, which reminded me of my own early experiences. Through my illustrations, I aimed to capture this delicate space between reality and imagination. Rather than focusing on literal scenes,