Thomas Kingston, the financier husband of Lady Gabriella Kingston, has died suddenly at the age of 45, Buckingham Palace announced Tuesday.

Kingston married into Britain’s most famous family in 2019, tying the knot with Lady Gabriella in a lavish ceremony at St. George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle.

Lady Gabriella, 42, who is 56th in line to the British throne and the daughter of Prince and Princess Michael of Kent, paid tribute to her “beloved husband” in a family statement on Tuesday, saying he was “an exceptional man who lit up the lives of all who knew him.”

She added that “his death has come as a great shock to the whole family.”

Buckingham Palace said that King Charles III and Queen Camilla had been informed of the financier’s death “and join Prince and Princess Michael of Kent and all those who knew him in grieving a much-loved member of the family.”

“In particular, Their Majesties send their most heartfelt thoughts and prayers to Gabriella and to all the Kingston family,” a palace spokesperson said.

Kingston was found dead at a property in Gloucestershire on Sunday, with emergency services called to the scene shortly after 6 p.m. (1 p.m. ET).

Lady Gabriella, who is the King’s second cousin, is not a working member of the royal family.

Her parents, Prince and Princess Michael of Kent, had attended a memorial service for the late King Constantine II of Greece with other members of the British royal family earlier Tuesday, before the announcement of Kingston’s death.

Constantine, who died in January last year, was Lady Gabriella’s godfather, according to the UK’s PA Media news agency.

Prince William, who was also a godchild of the late Greek monarch, did not attend the remembrance event at St. George’s at the last minute due to a personal matter. However, it is understood that the Prince of Wales’ absence was not connected to the news of Kingston’s death.

Prince Harry has lost a court challenge against a British government decision to strip him of taxpayer-funded protection after he quit royal duties.

Harry took legal action against the Home Office after it decided in February 2020 he would no longer be given the “same degree” of protection when in the country.

During a hearing in December, lawyers for Harry argued the decision meant he was “singled out” and treated “less favourably,” British news agency PA Media reported.

According to the news agency, his lawyers also cited a failure to consider the impact on the UK’s reputation of a “successful attack” on Harry, who has lived with his wife Meghan in California since July 2020.

But the court ruled that the decision was justified and “not marred by procedural unfairness.”

The Duke of Sussex has been vocal about the security of his family, often drawing comparisons between his wife’s treatment to that faced by his mother, Diana. The late Princess of Wales died in 1997 after suffering internal injuries resulting from a high-speed car crash in Paris.

This legal case was one of several lawsuits that Prince Harry has undertaken in the UK. In January, he dropped a separate libel claim he brought against Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL), the publisher of the Mail on Sunday.

Prince Harry sued ANL for libel over a February 2022 story about the Duke’s High Court case against the UK’s Home Office concerning security arrangements when he and his family visit the country.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

When NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test spacecraft intentionally slammed into the asteroid Dimorphos in September 2022, the impact may have caused “global deformation” of the space rock, according to new research.

The goal of the DART mission was to carry out a full-scale test of asteroid deflection technology on behalf of planetary defense and to see whether a kinetic impact — like crashing a spacecraft into an asteroid at 13,645 miles per hour (6.1 kilometers per second) — would be enough to change the motion of a celestial object in space.

Dimorphos is a moonlet asteroid that orbits a larger parent asteroid known as Didymos. Neither pose a threat to Earth, but the double-asteroid system was a perfect target to test deflection technology because Dimorphos’ size is comparable to asteroids that could pose a threat to Earth.

Since the day of impact, astronomers have used data from ground-based telescopes to determine that the DART spacecraft did change Dimorphos’ orbital period — or how long it takes to make a single revolution around Didymos — by about 32 to 33 minutes. But another crucial piece of information needed to understand how to deflect asteroids that may be on a potential collision course with Earth in the future is the composition of space rocks.

Different types of asteroids that pose a threat — whether hard, stony asteroids or rubble piles, which are effectively loose piles of rock held together by gravity — would require different deflection techniques.

The DART mission ended upon impact, but prior to colliding with Dimorphos, the spacecraft transmitted an incredibly detailed view of the little asteroid’s boulder-covered surface that is helping researchers learn more about how the space rock formed.

Astronomers were also able to carry out follow-up observations with ground- and space-based telescopes, and with the Italian LICIACube satellite that briefly followed the DART mission and imaged the aftermath for 5 minutes and 20 seconds.

The observations revealed that the impact unleashed a giant debris plume of material into space.

Now, researchers have taken the investigation a step further by putting all this data into software to help answer key remaining questions, such as determining how the asteroid reacted to the collision and what kind of crater was left behind.

Rather than forming a simple crater on Dimorphos, the DART impact reshaped the entire asteroid, the results have suggested. A study describing the findings appeared Monday in the journal Nature Astronomy.

The findings could prepare astronomers for what they will find when future missions fly by Dimorphos to better understand the effects of asteroid deflection technology.

Recreating the DART impact

A team of researchers modeled the impact using the Bern smoothed-particle hydrodynamics shock physics code to achieve their results.

It’s “a computational tool designed to simulate impact events. Shock-physics codes in general are essential in the study of collisions and impact processes. They incorporate various models, including material models and porosity models, to accurately represent the physical conditions during hypervelocity impact events, such as high pressures and temperatures,” said lead study author Dr. Sabina Raducan, postdoctoral researcher at the department of space research and planetary sciences at the University of Bern’s Physics Institute in Switzerland.

The software has been validated by replicating other impacts, including when Japan’s Hayabusa2 spacecraft punched a small copper impactor into the Ryugu asteroid in 2019.

The team ran 250 simulations to recreate the first two hours following the DART impact based on the data they did have while varying the factors they didn’t know, “such as the closeness of packing of boulders, their density, the porosity of material and its overall cohesion. We also made some reasonable assumptions based on the physical properties of meteorites resembling Dimorphos,” Raducan said.

After running their simulations, the team focused on the one that most closely matched the original DART data.

The results indicated that Dimorphos is a rubble pile made of rocky material shed from the Didymos asteroid, held together by weak gravity.

“On Earth the force of gravity is such that cratering occurs briefly, producing a typical cratering cone angle of around 90 degrees,” said study coauthor Dr. Martin Jutzi from the University of Bern’s Physics Institute, who is also cochair of the Hera Impact Physics Working Group, in a statement. “What we saw with DART’s impact of Dimorphos was a much wider ejecta cone angle extending by up to 160 degrees, influenced mainly by the curved shape of the asteroid’s surface. And the crater kept on expanding, because both the gravity and material cohesion is so low.”

As a result, the crater basically grew to encompass all of Dimorphos, completely transforming the asteroid’s shape.

The Hera mission

Raducan and Jutzi are part of the investigation team participating in the European Space Agency’s Hera mission, which will launch a spacecraft in October on a journey to observe the aftermath of the DART impact, arriving near the end of 2026. Together with a pair of CubeSats, the mission will study the composition and mass of Dimorphos and how it was transformed by the impact and determine how much momentum was transferred from the spacecraft to the asteroid.

“Our simulations suggest that Dimorphos has had its initial flying saucer shape blunted on its impact side: if you think of Dimorphos as starting out as resembling a chocolate M&M, now it would look like it has had a bite taken out of it!” Raducan said.

Queen guitarist and astrophysicist Sir Brian May, along with his collaborator, chemical engineer and material researcher Claudia Manzoni, also shared stereoscopic images to help the team determine more about the reshaping event.

The team believes that 1% of Dimorphos’ entire mass was kicked out into space due to the impact, while 8% of the asteroid’s mass was shifted around.

“Hera will probably not be able to find any crater left by DART,” Raducan said. “What it will discover instead will be a very different body.”

The longest sled dog race in the eastern United States is canceled this year due to insufficient snow coverage, which organizers say could make trail conditions dangerous for participants.

The annual Can-Am Crown International Sled Dog Races, which were slated to begin March 2, are held in Fort Kent, Maine, more than 300 miles north of Portland near the US-Canadian border. For 250 miles, the race course runs deep into the vast Allagash Wilderness with multiple viewing points for the thousands of spectators the event attracts.

But the Fort Kent area has had roughly 4 feet of snow since October 2023 — around 2 feet below average through February, according to the National Weather Service. The region, like much of the northern tier of the US, is experiencing its warmest winter on record, with high temperatures averaging around 6 degrees Fahrenheit above average.

Organizers said a heavy rainstorm is in the forecast that, coupled with a period of unseasonably warm weather, could rapidly deteriorate the trails even further.

Can-Am President Dennis Cyr said in a statement the decision to cancel the winter sport tradition this year was made “with heavy hearts but necessary caution.”

“The health and safety of our participants, both the dedicated mushers and their incredible dogs, are our top priorities,” Cyr said. “The unique challenges presented by the lack of snow have led us to conclude that moving forward with this year’s race could compromise the well-being of all involved.”

It’s not the first time the event has been called off or altered. Since the race first started in 1992, organizers have had to occasionally reroute due to treacherous weather. In 1994, thinning ice ended the race early, while a severe cold snap in 2017 forced organizers to make last-minute changes to the usual route, including limiting a number of downhill slopes. The 2021 races were also canceled during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Scientists say the climate crisis will significantly impact snow conditions across the Northeast. Decreasing snowfall and a shorter snow season are expected due to warmer temperatures that will cause more precipitation to fall as rain instead of snow.

Less snowpack carries a remarkable toll for places like Fort Kent that rely on winter recreational activities, including skiing and snowboarding, as key economic drivers. Many ski resorts in the Northern Hemisphere have already been facing such challenges.

The Can-Am organizers remain hopeful that the much-anticipated event will be back in 2025.

“This race is not just an event; it’s a tradition that celebrates the remarkable bond between mushers and their sled dogs, as well as the rugged beauty of Maine’s winter landscape,” Can-Am Vice President Sarah Brooks said in a statement. “However, we must put the safety of our participants first.”

Argentina’s President Javier Milei has banned gender-inclusive language in all official documents and public administration, the presidential spokesperson said Tuesday, as the far-right libertarian continues to implement his socially conservative agenda.

The ban, effective immediately, will prohibit “inclusive language and everything related to the gender perspective throughout the national public administration,” Manuel Adornis, spokesperson for the Casa Rosada, said in his daily press conference.

Spanish is a gender-defined language where most nouns are given a masculine “o” ending or a feminine “a” ending. In an effort to create gender-inclusive language in Spanish-speaking countries, there has been a push to use “x,” “e,” or “@” to create general-neutral nouns instead of using “o” or “a.” For example, the gender-neutral term “Latinx” as opposed to the masculine “Latino” or feminine “Latina.”

Going forward, “it will not be possible to use the letter ‘e,’ ​​the ‘@’ sign, the ‘x’,” Adornis said, adding that people should also “avoid the unnecessary use of the feminine in all public administration documents.”

Adornis rejected the argument that gender-inclusive language covers all demographics of society, saying, “the language that covers all sectors is the one we use; it is the Castilian language, it is Spanish,” he said.

“Gender perspectives” have been used as a political tool, the spokesperson said.

This announcement comes after gender-inclusive language was banned in the military following a resolution by the country’s defense ministry.

The debate around gender-neutral language has become a lightning rod in the culture wars in the Americas, with Milei previously railing against “gender ideology” – a term that has gained prominence in recent years among social conservatives who oppose LGBTQ rights.

The change comes after Argentina became the first country in Latin America to allow a different option in the “gender” field of identity documents. In 2021, the government of former President Alberto Fernández announced a new National Identity Document (DNI) for nonbinary people that establishes the terminology “x” in the field of gender for amended DNI and passports.

Fernández also used inclusive language during his speeches, in stark contrast to Milei, a social conservative with ties to the American right, who opposes abortion rights and has called climate change a “lie of socialism.”

Since coming to power last year, Milei has pursued conservative culture war issues. Last week, his government announced the closure of its anti-discrimination agency, saying the Ministry of Justice would absorb its functions.

Officials from Israel, Hamas and Qatar have cautioned against US President Joe Biden’s optimism that a hostage-for-ceasefire deal in Gaza could be reached by the end of this week, suggesting that differences remain as negotiators work to secure an agreement.

Biden said Monday during an appearance at an ice cream shop in New York City that he hoped there would be a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas conflict by “next Monday,” as the death toll in Gaza approaches 30,000.

“I don’t know on what basis he said it,” the Israeli official said Tuesday, asking not to be named due to the sensitivity of the subject. The official said Israel was ready to make a deal under the right terms.

“Israel will be ready to release [Palestinian] prisoners even today if conditions are met,” the official said.

Qatar, which along with the US is a key mediator in negotiations between Israel and Hamas, added further caution on Tuesday and hinted at a different timeline than that suggested by Biden.

“If there was an agreement you would see me more in a cheered attitude,” Majed Al-Ansari, a spokesperson for the Qatar Foreign Ministry, said Tuesday. “But until now we don’t have an agreement and we’re still working on negotiations on all fronts.”

“We have seen a positive trajectory by the sheer fact that the meetings are taking place, but we have yet to reach a final agreement, where we can hopefully announce before the beginning of Ramadan a humanitarian pause that will ease the tension and would allow us to bring in more aid into Gaza and would allow us to deescalate.”

Ramadan is set to begin as early as the evening of March 10, a week after the date Biden said he hoped to see a resolution.

Ansari said disagreements remain over “numbers, ratios and troop movements,” without elaborating further. He is likely referring to the number of hostages released for Palestinian prisoners and the withdrawal of Israeli soldiers from parts of Gaza.

“Certainly, we’d welcome getting one by this weekend,” Miller said.

Reuters and Al Jazeera reported Tuesday that Hamas was reviewing a draft proposal for an initial ceasefire lasting roughly six weeks, during which 40 Israeli hostages would be exchanged for 400 Palestinian prisoners.

Teams from the US, Egypt, Israel and Qatar met in Paris on Friday and then in Qatar Monday.

Those involved in the discussions have previously said an agreement would likely be implemented in multiple phases and once an initial deal is made it could lead to a truce lasting for as long as six weeks with a group of Israeli hostages released including women, children, the elderly and sick in exchange for a smaller number of Palestinian prisoners than Hamas had initially demanded.

During a truce, negotiations would take place over more sensitive topics like the release of male Israeli soldiers who are hostages, Palestinian prisoners serving longer sentences, the withdrawal of IDF forces and bringing a permanent end to the war alongside the so-called “day after” issues.

On Tuesday, US National Security spokesman John Kirby said there was hope that a temporary ceasefire could lead to a “better approach to end the conflict writ large.”

Referencing the previous week-long pause in fighting that took place at the end of November, Kirby said, “What we’re hoping for is much more aggressive than that. And as we’ve said before, we also hope that if we can get that in place, and both sides can abide by it for the course of several weeks, maybe up to six, that maybe that could lead to something more in terms of a better approach to end the conflict writ large.”

Kirby said he believes “we are getting closer in a negotiation” and hopeful it could “happen in coming days” but did not make any guarantees about that happening before Ramadan.

“It’s not about trying to beat the clock to Ramadan. It’s about trying to get these two sides to come to closure on a deal that again, would get all those hostages out and get them to get the fighting stopped,” he said.

Almost 30,000 people have died in Gaza since Israel waged war on Hamas on October 7, according to the health ministry in the enclave.

At least 1.7 million Palestinians in Gaza have been forcibly displaced, according to the UN. More than 1.3 million people have sought refuge in crammed shelters in the southern city of Rafah, where a looming Israeli ground assault has stirred panic among civilians – many of whom fled from fighting in the north.

An Australian photographer has filed a police complaint against Taylor Swift’s father, Scott Swift, for allegedly punching him as the superstar left a concert afterparty in Sydney in the early hours of Tuesday.

He claimed when Swift got off the boat, a security guard forced an umbrella into his face and camera, before he was punched by the star’s 71-year-old father.

Swift’s entourage was “aggressive and unprofessional,” he claimed.

“Two individuals were aggressively pushing their way towards Taylor, grabbing at her security personnel, and threatening to throw a female staff member into the water,” the statement said.

New South Wales Police said they are investigating an alleged assault involving a 51-year-old man and a 71-year-old man at Neutral Bay Wharf at 2:30 a.m. local time.

Neither man required medical treatment, police said in a statement.

Swift performed in Sydney and Melbourne for the Australia leg of her global “Eras Tour,” continuing her string of concerts across the Asia-Pacific region; earlier in February, she performed in Tokyo, and is set to perform in Singapore in March.

Australian police have found two bodies in the search for a missing couple allegedly killed by a police officer.

New South Wales Senior Constable Beaumont Lamarre-Condon, 28, was charged last week with the murders of his former boyfriend Jesse Baird, 26, and Luke Davies, 29.

“We’re very confident that we have located Luke and Jesse,” NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb told a news conference on Tuesday.

Lamarre-Condon had provided information to help locate the bodies, Webb added.

The bodies, which have yet to be examined, were discovered in two surf bags covered in debris on a property in the NSW town of Bungonia, Detective Superintendent Daniel Doherty said.

Crime scene detectives were at the location investigating, Webb said.

“Each day, each hour was an agonizing wait, so I’m relieved for the families,” she said.

Davies, a flight attendant, and Baird, a former television presenter, were last seen at Baird’s home in the eastern Sydney suburb of Paddington on February 19. Fears for their safety rose after their bloodied belongings were found in a skip container in Cronulla, around 30 kilometers (18 miles) away.

Police previously said that a search of Baird’s home found blood, a “projectile” and a fired cartridge case that was matched to Lamarre-Condon’s firearm.

Lamarre-Condon appeared in court Friday charged with two counts of murder. He did not apply for bail.

Negotiations to release Russia’s opposition leader Alexey Navalny in a prisoner swap had reached their “final stage” just before his sudden death, a top aide to Navalny has said.

Navalny and two US citizens were on the verge of being exchanged for Vadim Krasikov, a Russian hitman serving a life sentence in Germany for the 2019 assassination of a former Chechen fighter in Berlin, according to Maria Pevchikh, a top aide to Navalny, speaking in a video published Monday on his YouTube channel.

“Navalny was supposed to be free in the coming days because we had achieved a decision on his exchange,” Pevchikh said. “I received confirmation that negotiations were at the final stage on the evening of February 15.” Navalny was reported dead in an Arctic prison on February 16.

The State Department would not comment on reports of a potential prisoner swap, and spokesperson Matthew Miller would not say whether such a deal would have included the two Americans designated as wrongly detained in Russia: Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and former US Marine Paul Whelan.

Putin had recently signaled his interest in a prisoner exchange with the West involving Krasikov and Gershkovich. He told former Fox News host Tucker Carlson “an agreement can be reached” to release a man whom he said “eliminated a bandit in one of the European capitals” motivated by “patriotic reasons.”

Pevchikh stated that Putin “could have gotten” Krasikov “if he gave up Navalny,” but alleged that, because Putin could not tolerate the thought of Navalny being free, he instead decided to “get rid of the bargaining chip.”

The Kremlin has denied any role in Navalny’s death.

“It’s absolutely illogical, absolutely irrational, it’s the behavior of the mad mafioso. But the point is that Putin has gone mad with hatred for Navalny. Putin hates him so much that he acts to his own detriment and against his own rational interests,” Pevchikh said.

Russia’s prison service claims Navalny “felt unwell after a walk” and “almost immediately” lost consciousness while detained in the “Polar Wolf” penal colony in Siberia. It said it was investigating his “sudden death.”

Navalny’s mother, Lyudmila Navalnaya, said last week she had signed his medical death certificate, which said he died of natural causes.

Pevchikh said Navalny’s team had been working on the deal since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began two years ago, and accused Western officials of failing to show enough desire or political will to secure his exchange.

“Officials, American and German, nodded understandingly, talked about how important it was to help Navalny and political prisoners, shook hands, promised, and did nothing,” she said.

She said Navalny’s team took desperate measures to free him, even contacting former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger, whom Pevchikh described as a friend of Putin. Kissinger has since died.

Navalny joined a long list of Russian dissidents who died after challenging Putin’s legitimacy. His death comes shortly before Russia’s presidential election scheduled for March 15-17, which is widely seen by the international community as little more than a formality that will secure Putin a fifth term in power and extend his rule until at least 2030.

Navalny’s body was returned to his mother on Saturday, more than a week after his death. Navalnaya had previously claimed Russian authorities were blackmailing her by refusing to hand over her son’s body until she agreed to conditions for “where, when and how Alexey should be buried.”

Peskov said Monday that Navalnaya’s accusations were “absurd” and that the Kremlin “has nothing to do with the case” and therefore “cannot exert pressure.”

Kira Yarmysh, Navalny’s spokesperson, said on Monday his team is “looking for a hall for a public farewell to Alexey” to be held at the end of this week.

French President Emmanuel Macron openly discussed the possibility of sending European troops to Ukraine to help Kyiv win the war against Russia, a potential major escalation to the largest ground war Europe has seen since World War II.

Speaking at a news conference after hosting a summit to discuss Ukraine on Monday, Macron told reporters that while he and the other 21 European leaders present did not agree on deploying military personnel, the prospect was discussed openly.

“Nothing should be ruled out,” he said. “We will do anything we can to prevent Russia from winning this war.”

As part of that effort, Macron announced that a new coalition would be created to supply Ukraine with medium-range and long-range missiles.

“We’re at a critical moment in this conflict that requires us to take the initiative,” Macron said.

With $60 billion worth of American funding for Ukraine held up by Republicans in Congress, the burden has shifted to Europe to help arm Ukraine as it attempts to fend off a resurgent Russian military.

Sending in Western troops, however, would be a drastic step, one that was unthinkable when the Kremlin launched its full-scale invasion two years ago.

But Macron pointed out that Western democracies have gradually increased their support to levels unthinkable when the war began. He highlighted the example of Germany, which offered helmets and sleeping bags to Kyiv at the outset of the conflict and is now saying more needs to be done to supply the country with missiles and tanks.

“The people that said ‘never ever’ today were the same ones who said never ever planes, never ever long-range missiles, never ever trucks. They said all that two years ago,” he said. “We have to be humble and realize that we (have) always been six to eight months late.”