Police assure parents and teachers that warnings were bogus despite pupils being evacuated from some sites

Hundreds of schools in Scotland and Northern Ireland were hit by a fresh wave of hoax bomb threats on Wednesday, with some sites evacuated as a precaution.

Police said at least 470 schools, from Dumfries in the south of Scotland to Aberdeenshire and Orkney in the north, had received the hoax warnings. At least 300 schools were affected in Northern Ireland. Similar claims were sent in a “generic communication” to schools in the Republic of Ireland.

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‘I was chosen to go around the Moon on a SpaceX starship. Preparations took over my life. Then, four minutes into watching a rocket on a test flight, it broke apart. And that was the end of my adventure’

This photograph was taken on 20 April 2023 from the VIP section of SpaceX’s launch viewing area, looking out from South Padre Island, Texas, towards Boca Chica, a nature reserve near the Mexican border which is home to SpaceX’s Starbase launchpad.

In 2021, I and seven other civilians were selected from an open call to go around the Moon on a free SpaceX Starship flight funded by the Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa. The dearMoon Project included myself and another photographer. For me, the story also became about being plucked from obscurity and planted in this very surreal world I could never have imagined being a part of in a million years. At the time, only 24 white American men had orbited or landed on the moon. Being selected for something like that changes your life and your perception of your worth in the world. The flight, originally scheduled for 2023, completely took over my life. It took the air out of every room – I couldn’t talk about anything else. People stopped commissioning me because they assumed I was busy going to space; every conversation I had was about it. This was going to be the rest of my life.

That day in April was pivotal. We were there to watch SpaceX’s Integrated Flight Test 1. After four minutes, following a relatively successful liftoff, the vehicle experienced what they call in space terms an “RUD” – Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly – and broke apart in the air. We put on a brave face but secretly I was thinking: “Wow, the risks are no longer theoretical. I could have been on that.”

The dust cloud in the image emerged from the concrete launchpad and tower – obliterated by the power of the raptor engines. The debris ended up all over the local houses and SpaceX closed the launch facility for reconstruction for four months while they conducted a huge clean-up operation. Going to space feels futuristic and grandiose but there are still the practical problems – like people wiping dust off their windows.

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Far-right populists remain insurgent and pro-EU governments are braced for Trump’s betrayal. But the midterms also showed that democracy can fight back

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“Is Maga dead?” asked Margaret, a Guardian reader in Switzerland, in a live Q&A with our correspondents after the seismic US midterm elections. If Margaret’s query expressed a hope that the Democrats’ blue wave could transform Europe’s fortunes after two years of Maga-induced trauma, she was probably not alone.

The resounding defeat for Donald Trump’s Republicans and the installation of a Democratic-controlled US Congress has been met with understandable relief in European capitals. In the short term however, the worst for Europe is not over. Trump didn’t need congressional approval, after all, to unleash a trade war on his supposed European allies, threaten to invade Greenland, try to stitch up Ukraine or go to war with Iran, an act that has inflated fuel and food prices disastrously.

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CDA-leider Henri Bontenbal is blij met de overeenkomst die zijn partij en D66 hebben weten te sluiten met Pro en Volt.

ANTALYA (ANP) - De Turkse president Erdogan en VN-chef Guterres begonnen hun dag op de klimaattop woensdag met het aanplanten van olijfbomen. Op de COP31 in Antalya zijn diverse initiatieven te horen die op een grotere schaal tot nieuwe aanplant moeten leiden. Toch kunnen al die plannen de wereldwijde ontbossing vooralsnog niet bijbenen.

Volgens het jaarlijkse Global Carbon Budget Report, dat tijdens de top werd gepresenteerd, leidde permanente ontbossing de afgelopen jaren gemiddeld tot 3,8 miljard ton extra CO2 in de atmosfeer. Dat is iets minder dan een tiende van de totale wereldwijde uitstoot.

Herbebossing en het aanplanten van nieuwe bomen kan volgens het rapport de helft tot maximaal twee derde van die uitstoot compenseren. De onderzoekers melden dat China daarbij aan de leiding gaat, maar ook in Europa en de VS worden meer bomen geplant dan gekapt. Ondanks de ambities lukt dat in Brazilië nog niet. Ook in Rusland en Indonesië gaat nog altijd meer bos verloren dan er bijkomt, aldus het onderzoek.

Nvidia gaat onderzoek doen naar welk leren jasje de midlifecrisis van CEO Jensen Huang precies prijsgaf. Een woordvoerder van het bedrijf laat weten: “Dat hij ontvankelijk was voor een affaire met een Chinese spion is inmiddels heel duidelijk. Wij willen alleen weten wélke van de 27 leren jasjes de boosdoener is voor dat signaal. Hoe wisten ze dat hij in een levensfase zit waarin hij zo makkelijk voor de avances van een jongere vrouw zou vallen? De onderste steen moet boven.” Experts wijzen naar de glimmende Tom Ford Patent Printed Croc Collar Blouson van bijna 9.000 dollar. Bert Bokhoven, hoogleraar Affaires aan de Universiteit van Salou, denkt daarentegen dat het onmogelijk is om één boosdoener aan te wijzen: “Het gaat meer om de vibe die je afgeeft, zie je in de vakliteratuur. China doet zijn huiswerk erg goed, die gaan niet over één jas ijs.” Bokhoven waarschuwt dat meer CEO’s het slachtoffer kunnen worden van honey trap-achtige situaties. “China heeft mannen als Elon Musk en Jeff Bezos ook absoluut op de radar, als ik kijk naar de jasjes die ze dragen. Mijn advies zou zijn: trek gewoon een saai, grijs pak aan, dan ben je veel minder kwetsbaar als CEO.”

U.S. comedian Josh Johnson surprised by CBC journalist in viral video. (slCBC)

Here is the entirety of Johnson's bit about his curiosity involving how the CBC chooses to run certain stories. (slTikTok)

In the latest episode of official podcast F1 Beyond The Grid, Bruno Senna opened up on Kimi Antonelli's emotional visit to the family estate of three-time champion Ayrton Senna.