Blue Origin’s tourism rocket — which is designed to vault paying customers on brief trips to the edge of space — will return to flight on Monday after the Jeff Bezos-founded company spent more than a year recuperating from a failed uncrewed test flight.

The rocket, New Shepard, is expected to launch on an uncrewed science mission at 8:30 a.m. CT (9:30 a.m. ET) from Blue Origin’s facilities on a private ranch in West Texas. The company will stream the event on its website.

Though no one will be on board the flight, a success could tee up Blue Origin to restart its trips to space for thrill seekers.

A New Shepard rocket and spacecraft was set to launch a batch of science instruments on September 12, 2022. But one minute into flight, the rocket endured Max Q — an aerospace term that refers to a moment of maximum stress on a vehicle at a relatively low altitude where the atmosphere is still fairly thick, and the rocket is moving at nearly the speed of sound.

Around that time, the rocket appeared to emit a massive burst of flames. The New Shepard capsule, which rides atop the rocket, then initiated its launch abort system — firing up a small engine to blast itself safely away from the malfunctioning rocket. That system worked as intended, parachuting the capsule to a safe landing.

Blue Origin later revealed that the cause of the failure was a problem with the engine nozzle, a large cone that directs the flaming exhaust at the rocket’s bottom. Onboard computers accurately detected the failure and shut the engine down, according to the company.

No injuries were reported on the ground, and Blue Origin said the science payloads and the capsule could be flown again.

But the rocket, left without a functioning engine, smashed back into the ground and was completely destroyed. Typically after New Shepard launches, the rocket booster guides itself back to a safe upright landing so it can be flown again.

During a Thursday interview with podcaster Lex Fridman, Bezos  said that the escape system that jettisoned the capsule to safety is the most difficult piece of engineering in the entire rocket — but “it is the reason that I am comfortable letting anyone go on New Shepard.”

“The (rocket) booster is as safe and reliable as we can make it,” Bezos added. “The power density is so enormous that it is impossible to ever be sure that nothing will go wrong. … So the only way to improve safety is to have an escape system.

“A tourism vehicle has to be designed in my view … to be as safe as one can make it,” he said. “You can’t make it perfectly safe. It’s impossible.”

What went wrong

Before the September 2022 failure, New Shepard rockets had flown 22 consecutive successful missions — including six with passengers on board. Bezos flew aboard the rocket in 2021.

The Federal Aviation Administration, which licenses commercial rocket launches and is charged with ensuring public safety, oversaw an investigation into the failure. The probe revealed that the engine nozzle failed because it experienced higher temperatures than what the company had anticipated.

To fix the issue, Blue Origin said it implemented “design changes to the combustion chamber” — the area of the engine where fuel explosively mixes with oxidizer — and adjusted “operating parameters,” or the data that the company uses to model safe flights.

“Additional design changes to the nozzle have improved structural performance under thermal and dynamic loads,” the company said in a March statement.

The FAA formally concluded the mishap investigation on September 27, outlining 21 “corrective actions” Blue Origin must implement before returning to flight. The agency did not reveal details on what those actions were, noting the report “contains proprietary data and U.S  Export Control information and is not available for public release.”

New Glenn on the horizon

New Shepard’s return to flight comes as Blue Origin is racing to deliver on another key project: It’s developing a massive rocket called New Glenn that’s capable of hauling satellites and other large payloads into orbit.

That rocket is years overdue. And the same engines that will power New Glenn’s rocket booster, the BE-4 engines, will also fuel a new line of rockets developed by United Launch Alliance — a joint Lockheed Martin and Boeing venture. United Launch Alliance’s new Vulcan Centaur rocket is slated to launch its first mission, delivering a NASA-sponsored lander to the moon, in January.

New Glenn likewise has an important first launch on the horizon, potentially carrying a NASA satellite to study the magnetized area of space around Mars as soon as next year.

Bezos admitted during last week’s podcast interview that he is “extremely nervous” about the first launch of New Glenn.

“Every launch I go to, for New Shepard, for other vehicles, too, I’m always nervous for these launches,” he said. “A first launch — to have no nervousness about that — would be some sign of derangement.”

An Israeli military sniper shot and killed two women inside the Holy Family Parish in Gaza on Saturday, according to the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem.

The mother and daughter were walking to the Sister’s Convent, the patriarchate said, when gunfire erupted. “One was killed as she tried to carry the other to safety,” it added.

Seven others were also shot and wounded in the attack at the complex, where most Gaza’s Christian families have taken refuge since the start of the war, according to the patriarchate, which oversees Catholic Churches across Cyprus, Jordan, Israel, Gaza and the West Bank.

“No warning was given, no notification was provided,” the statement continued. “They were shot in cold blood inside the premises of the parish, where there are no belligerents.”

Pope Francis on Sunday addressed the deaths at the Holy Family Parish, lamenting that “unarmed civilians are targets for bombs and gunfire” in Gaza and invoking scripture on war.

“I continue receiving very serious and sad news about Gaza. Unarmed civilians are targets for bombs and gunfire. And this has happened even within the parish complex of the Holy Family, where there are no terrorists, but families, children, people who are sick and have disabilities, sisters,” he said during his weekly Angelus prayer.

“Some are saying, ‘This is terrorism and war.’ Yes, it is war, it is terrorism. That is why Scripture says that ‘God puts an end to war… the bow he breaks and the spear he snaps,’” the Pope continued.

“Let us pray to the Lord for peace,” he added.

According to the patriarchate, Israel Defense Forces tanks also targeted the Convent of the Sisters of Mother Theresa, which houses 54 disabled people and is part of the church’s compound. The building’s generator, its only current source of electricity, as well as its fuel resources, solar panels and water tanks were also destroyed.

IDF rockets had made the convent “uninhabitable,” the statement said.

On Friday, UK lawmaker Layla Moran, a member of parliament for Oxford West and Abingdon, said that members of her family sheltering in the church were “beyond desperate and terrified” as conditions continued to worsen.

Moran on November 15 told the UK House of Commons that a family member who had been sheltering in the church had died. Citing accounts from her family, Moran added that electricity generators at the church had stopped.

“[My family] are reporting white phosphorous and gunfire into their compound,” she said. “The bin collector and the janitor have been shot and their bodies are laying outside and remain uncollected.”

This is a developing story and will be updated.

An intense storm in Argentina has left at least 13 people dead and others injured in the southwestern port city of Bahía Blanca, according to Mayor Federico Susbielles and local authorities.

Winds reached up to 140 kilometers (87 miles) per hour in the city on Saturday, and at least 300 people had been evacuated as of 3.30 a.m. local time (1 a.m. ET) Sunday, according to local authorities.

The city council said on social media late Saturday that the situation caused by the storm was a “catastrophe,” reporting multiple injuries, some “extremely serious.”

The council added that the most serious situation was at the sports club Bahiense del Norte, where medical emergency and civil defense workers were onsite.

In a statement posted to X, formerly Twitter, on Sunday, mayor Susbielles declared three days of mourning, saying: “I want to reaffirm our solidarity with the families and loved ones of the 13 deceased people. Accordingly, we have declared mourning in the city for the next 72 hours.”

He reminded citizens of the importance of keeping safe by staying home, adding: “We are still in an emergency situation, with electrical risk and risk of falling trees and structures.”

In an update posted on X around midday local time, the city council said a Crisis Committee met to plan the their next steps.

The city’s emergency teams received 103,544 calls about downed trees, power lines and signs, among other damage, according to a statement on Sunday.

The office of Argentina’s President Javier Milei said Saturday that the national cabinet is working with provincial and municipal authorities to help the victims and respond to the damage.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on Sunday said it has uncovered “the biggest Hamas tunnel” in Gaza, spanning a length of four kilometres (2.5 miles).

The IDF said the tunnel, secured “a few weeks ago” but revealed to the public Sunday, is wide enough to drive a large vehicle through, reaches up to 50 meters underground and is equipped with electricity, ventilation and communication systems.

It does not cross into Israel but ends 400 meters before the now-shut Erez Crossing on the northern Israeli-Gazan border, according to the IDF. Erez was stormed during the October 7 attacks.

The tunnel was a part of Hamas’ “strategic infrastructure” and would be destroyed, according to the IDF. In a video shared by the IDF, the Israeli military claimed that the tunnel was created for Hamas troop movements and as a launching point for attacks.

In a statement Sunday, the IDF alleged that the tunnel system was a project of the brother of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, Muhammad Sinwar. The IDF did not provide any evidence to support the claim.

The IDF claims to have exposed “hundreds of terror tunnel shafts throughout the Gaza Strip” and says it is operating “to locate and destroy dozens of attack tunnel routes.”

Vast labyrinth

Hamas has claimed to have built 500 kilometers (311 miles) worth of tunnels under Gaza, though it is unclear if that figure was accurate.

The tunnels under Gaza are used to smuggle goods from Egypt, launch attacks into Israel, store rockets and ammunition caches and house Hamas command and control centers.

Some of those taken hostage in the October 7 attacks described being taken to them and being forced to march for hours.

Last month, the Israeli military uncovered a tunnel shaft on the grounds of the Al-Shifa hospital complex, the enclave’s largest medical facility. Its discovery has been central to the IDF’s argument that there may be a network of tunnels below the hospital.

The hospital, Gaza’s largest, was raided by Israeli forces last month, who accuse Hamas of running a command center beneath it. Hamas and hospital officials say it has only been used to treat patients.

If successful, flooding could be ramped up to degrade the tunnel network on a larger scale.

Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai, known for his support of the city’s pro-democracy movement and criticism of China’s leaders, turned 76 behind bars in a maximum security prison earlier this month.

He has been in detention since 2020 and jailed for multiple charges linked to Hong Kong’s democracy protest movement and his media business, as the founder of Apple Daily, a pro-democracy, anti-Beijing newspaper that was forced to shut down in 2021.

Long an unapologetically pugilistic thorn in Beijing’s side, Lai now faces his most consequential legal challenge to date.

The trial – which is expected to last at least 80 days – is the most high-profile prosecution of a Hong Kong media figure since the city was handed over from British to Chinese control in 1997. And it could set new precedents for Hong Kong’s rapidly changing legal landscape.

Since huge and sometimes violent democracy protests swept through Hong Kong in 2019, dozens of the city’s most prominent democracy activists have been jailed or have fled overseas.

But few command the kind of international recognition that Lai does.

Prosecutors allege that articles published by Lai’s Apple Daily newspaper violated Hong Kong’s national security law by calling for overseas sanctions against the city’s leaders. Lai has pleaded not guilty.

Beijing imposed the national security law in the wake of the 2019 protests, arguing it has “restored stability” and closed loopholes that allowed “foreign forces” to undermine China.

Critics say it has decimated Hong Kong’s freedoms and transformed the city’s legal landscape.

Like all national security cases so far, the high-profile trial will not have a jury and will be presided over by three national security judges from a committee that is approved by Hong Kong’s leader. Hong Kong’s government has also blocked Lai from being represented by a British lawyer, a decision which is undergoing a separate legal challenge that has repeatedly delayed this trial’s start date.

Once one of the city’s most outspoken figures, little has been heard from Lai since his multiple prosecutions began.

Lai’s son met with Britain’s foreign minister last week to lobby for the release of his father – who is also a British citizen – after a round of similar campaigning in the US and Canada.

Chinese authorities have condemned Western criticism of Lai’s prosecution and ahead of this week’s trial reiterated the denunciations they have often employed against the media tycoon.

“It’s public knowledge that Jimmy Lai is one of the most notorious anti-China elements bent on destabilizing Hong Kong and a mastermind of the riots that took place in Hong Kong,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning told reporters last Wednesday at a regular press briefing.

“He blatantly colluded with external forces to undermine China’s national security and is responsible for numerous egregious acts. The Hong Kong (government) took action to hold him accountable in accordance with the law. This is beyond reproach,” Mao added.

Hong Kong authorities have employed more cautious language, declining to comment on legal proceedings while defending how police and prosecutors have pursued national security prosecutions.

“All cases concerning offense endangering national security will be handled in a fair and timely manner,” the spokesperson added.

Amnesty International’s deputy regional director for China, Sarah Brooks, said the trial “epitomizes the rapid decline of rule of law in Hong Kong.”

“This case has been an attack on press freedom and freedom of expression from the very start. The Hong Kong authorities must release Jimmy Lai immediately and unconditionally and expunge his criminal convictions. No one should be prosecuted solely for exercising their human rights,” Brooks said in a statement on Friday (Dec 15).

The Committee to Protect Journalists called the trial “a travesty of justice.”

“It is press freedom and the rule of law that are on trial in Hong Kong,” CPJ’s Asia program coordinator Beh Lih Yi said.

Rags to riches

Lai’s fortunes, both personal and financial, are inextricably tied to the history of modern Hong Kong.

As the Great Chinese Famine gripped mainland China in 1960, Lai smuggled himself out of the southern province of Guangdong and into the then British colony of Hong Kong in the bottom of a fishing boat. He arrived in the city at the age of 12 and dirt poor.

Lai said he became an odd jobs man at a textile factory, making 60 Hong Kong dollars ($7) a month and living in an apartment with 10 others in the slum neighborhood of Sham Shui Po – still one of Hong Kong’s most impoverished districts.

Within two decades, Lai had learned English, worked his way up the factory floor to the position of salesman and decided to start his own retail line. On one trip to New York during fabric sampling season, he bought a pizza. Written on the napkin was the name Giordano.

That became the name of his wildly successful, casual men’s clothing chain, which made Lai his first fortune.

But China’s deadly 1989 crackdown on student protesters in Tiananmen Square politicized Lai and created something of a rarity in Hong Kong: a wealthy tycoon willing to openly criticize Beijing’s leaders.

He moved out of the clothing business and chose a new role – media baron.

Lai founded Apple Daily in 1995, two years before Hong Kong was handed over to China.

Modeled visually on USA Today, the paper caused a minor revolution in the city’s media landscape, sparking a price war and drastically changing how rivals operated as they struggled to keep up with Lai’s flashy tabloid sensibilities.

While celebrity gossip and other tabloid fare were a mainstay at the paper, it also emerged as one of the fiercest critics of the local government and Beijing, winning awards for its exposés on corruption and human rights reporting.

It was also openly supportive of successive waves of pro-democracy protests that swept through Hong Kong, culminating in the 2019 movement. Lai himself was frequently seen at the marches, in the pouring rain or blazing summer heat, sparking denunciations from China’s state-run media.

As unrest between protesters and police became increasingly violent, calls from a minority of protesters for Hong Kong independence from mainland China grew – a red line in the eyes of Beijing authorities, who brandished all pro-democracy calls as a US-backed “color revolution,” and described protesters as “rioters,” “radicals” and “thugs”.

A devout Catholic and vocal supporter of former US President Donald Trump, Lai had lobbied extensively overseas for foreign governments to apply pressure on China over Hong Kong. During this period of social unrest, Lai traveled to Washington where he met with then Vice President Mike Pence to discuss the political situation in Hong Kong and other leading politicians.

In the eyes of Beijing, this was seen as colluding with foreign forces to undermine the country’s security.

US sanctions have long infuriated Chinese authorities and often spark reciprocal measures. During the 2019 protests, Beijing was incensed at Hong Kongers like Lai who openly called for restrictions to be placed on Chinese and Hong Kong officials. State media mouthpiece Global Times, for example, described Lai’s meetings with US politicians as “intervention of foreign forces” by a “group of traitors,” and vowed to punish such actions.

The US has since sanctioned multiple Hong Kong and Chinese officials over Beijing’s ongoing crackdown in the city.

When Beijing imposed the new national security law on Hong Kong in June 2020, Lai said publicly that he knew he would likely become a target but he vowed to remain in Hong Kong nonetheless.

Lai was marched out of his own newsroom in August 2020 and arrested by the national security police on suspicion of colluding with foreign forces.

In June the following year hundreds of police officers raided Apple Daily’s headquarters, declaring the newsroom a crime scene under the national security law.

Officers arrested executives and top news editors, seized journalistic materials and confiscated laptops, computers and mobile phones.

A week later, Apple Daily printed its final edition. All 1 million copies – 10 times more than its usual print run – sold out.

The paper’s closure sent a deep chill through Hong Kong’s media industry. Multiple smaller local outlets critical of Hong Kong’s government also followed Apple Daily in shuttering following police investigations.

“Freedom of speech and press cannot become a ‘shield’ for criminal acts, nor can media organizations become a place above the law where they are immune from accountability,” China’s Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office said a day after Apple Daily closed following the national security raid.

Hong Kong’s government has also repeatedly denied that the city’s media freedoms have been affected by the law.

But that is disputed by multiple human rights and media groups.

In its annual World Press Freedom Index, Reporters Without Borders ranks Hong Kong 140 out of 180 countries and territories, down from 18th place two decades ago. Mainland China is ranked at 179.

It’s impossible to know what Mars looked like billions of years ago, but one robotic explorer’s intrepid sleuthing is giving astronomers a peek into the past.

The NASA Perseverance rover just marked 1,000 days on the red planet. Percy has completed its investigation of an ancient river delta that fed into a Martian surface feature called Jezero Crater.

By studying and sampling rocks since landing in February 2021, the rover has helped scientists piece together a timeline of when a shallow lake filled the crater.

Now, the rover continues its quest to find signs of past life on the red planet. And a new discovery on Earth could provide scientists with an idea of what fossils may look like if they exist on Mars.

Once upon a planet

A previously hidden system of lagoons in Puna de Atacama, an arid plateau in northwestern Argentina, is providing a rare window into what ecosystems were like on early Earth billions of years ago.

Within the lagoons are living fossils called giant stromatolites, or layered rocks created by algae and minerals such as gypsum and rock salt.

The inhospitable environment of the high salt plains is often compared with Mars. But since the red planet was likely covered with lakes and perhaps an ocean billions of years ago, Mars may have once been more similar to Earth.

“If we’re going to find any sort of fossils on Mars, this is our best guess as to what they would be, because these are the oldest ones from the Earth rock record,” said Brian Hynek, a professor in the department of geological sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder.

Other worlds

Saturn’s moon Enceladus has long intrigued astronomers as an ocean world in our solar system that may support life.

Plumes of ice grains and water vapor rise from cracks in its thick, icy crust, hinting at the presence of a salty subsurface ocean. And now, a new analysis of data collected by NASA’s Cassini mission has revealed hydrogen cyanide, a molecule that plays a key role in the processes driving the origin of life.

What’s more, the research team found evidence that the moon has a chemical energy source driven by organic compounds.

Together, the presence of water, energy and the building blocks of life suggest that Enceladus might be the best place to search for life beyond Earth.

Discoveries

Some of the most exciting art and archaeological finds of the year were both unconventional and unexpected.

History sleuths identified the man carrying a bundle of sticks on the cover of Led Zeppelin’s 1971 album commonly known as “Led Zeppelin IV.”

Researchers discovered the oldest known European shoes and unearthed a still glimmering Bronze Age sword.

And nearly 400-year-old murals emerged from behind a kitchen wall, while a hidden hallway was found inside the Great Pyramid of Giza.

We are family

People who tend to rise early may owe some of the credit to Neanderthals, according to new research.

Neanderthals evolved while living at high latitudes in Europe and Asia for hundreds of thousands of years. Over time, our extinct relatives likely became better adapted to seasonal variations in daylight compared with early modern humans who lived closer to the equator in Africa.

This genetic legacy may have been passed on as humans migrated across the globe and encountered Neanderthals. It’s just one of many Neanderthal genes that have been traced from ancient DNA and discovered in modern human populations.

Across the universe

A new image taken by the James Webb Space Telescope has allowed astronomers their closest and most detailed look inside the remains of an exploded star.

It’s the second time researchers have used Webb to observe Cassiopeia A, a glowing supernova remnant in our galaxy.

Some of the newly spotted features include ghostly light echoes, which look like the offspring of the massive cosmic cloud.

Separately, a team of researchers observed a mysterious, repeating fast radio burst from space that has a never-before-seen quirk: The phenomenon has a frequency that sounds like a celestial slide whistle.

Curiosities

Settle in and embark on a journey with these unusual reads:

— Engineers are trying to solve a computer glitch on the 46-year-old Voyager 1 spacecraft, which has stopped sending back scientific data as it explores the outer edges of our solar system 15 billion miles away.

— The massive, well-preserved skull of a prehistoric sea monster was found on a beach in southern England and will be detailed in a documentary presented by legendary naturalist Sir David Attenborough.

— Scientists have discovered an unusual phenomenon that keeps Himalayan glaciers cool despite warming global temperatures.

New Zealand’s new right-leaning government took more than a month to take shape, but Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and his coalition partners are now racing to strip back policies that had earned former leader Jacinda Ardern plaudits worldwide amongst progressives.

While a swing to the right was predicted, the pace of change under the Nationals’ Luxon has startled observers, and his coalition’s moves to ditch policies seen to favor the country’s indigenous people has seen critics quickly accuse them of being “anti-Māori.”

Under Luxon, the government is proposing to dissolve the country’s Māori Health Authority, rollback the use of the Māori language, and end the country’s limits on tobacco sales – a move Māori leaders had sought to cut high rates of smoking among their people.

“Your attacks on our culture have motivated our standing in solidarity,” the co-leader of the Te Pati Māori party, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, blasted across the parliamentary aisle in the capital Wellington this month.

The same day, the Māori King, Tūheitia Potatau Te Wherowhero VII, issued a royal proclamation calling for a “national hui” – a coming together of the country’s indigenous people, to discuss “holding the new coalition government to account.”

Many New Zealanders feel the same, with tens of thousands of people turning out across the country for anti-government demonstrations hastily arranged by Ngarewa-Packer’s party.

“Do I think that the Prime Minister will listen? He has to,” Ngarewa-Packer said, adding that the world is watching the Luxon government.

“I think it’s a humiliating position for a first time Prime Minister to be in,” she said.

Speaking at a news conference on the day of the protests, Luxon said the criticism of his new government was “pretty unfair.”

“We are determined that Māori are going to do better under our government than they have in the last six years,” he said.

Voter backlash

Ardern resigned as Prime Minister in January, handing the leadership to her deputy Chris Hipkins, who attempted to refocus their Labour Party’s policies on the cost-of-living crisis.

But it wasn’t enough to extend Labour’s time in office.

While Ardern won fans around the world for her compassionate response to the 2019 Christchurch terror attack, her position on climate change and by championing working mothers in politics, her domestic legacy is far more contested.

Failed Auckland infrastructure projects led to accusations of wastefulness at a time when the Labour’s “wellbeing budgets” dramatically increased payments to underprivileged families. Farmers protested legislation to curb agricultural emissions and protect waterways.

Before the vote, the leaders of the new conservative coalition government, made up of The National Party, New Zealand First, and ACT New Zealand, had all promised to unwind some of Arden’s legacy.

Right-wing candidates railed against the Labour’s perceived expansion of New Zealand’s long-held principle of co-governance, designed to ensure Māori representation in administrative bodies. And in the lead-up to the vote, some Māori candidates complained of racist abuse.

The election on October 14 saw a flurry of deal-making as Luxon sought to shore up his thin margin with smaller players.

In late November, the new partners published a 100-day plan under which initiatives designed to benefit Māori will be rolled back, including a vow to dissolve the Māori Health Authority established in 2022 with a mandate to improve the health of indigenous people.

The plan also backflips on Ardern’s world-leading ban on the sale of cigarettes to people born after 2008 – also seen as anti-Māori as some 20% of Māori adults smoke, far higher than the national average of 8%.

Organizations such as The Māori Women’s Welfare League, that works to empower Māori women and children, have vowed to hold Luxon accountable on his assertion that Māori health outcomes will be improved by what his government argues will be a reduction in red tape.

“They are not things that are dreamed up in five minutes. They are established because of evidence over time,” Māori Women’s Welfare League President Hope Tupara said.

“We saw (the Ardern administration) increasing the amount of government investment into Māori health solutions by Māori providers on the basis of ‘by Māori for Māori.’

“We have an expectation of the kinds of public services that are available to us as part of the population, which I think is reasonable.”

Richard Shaw, a professor of politics at New Zealand’s Massey University, described Luxon’s government as “the most explicitly anti-Māori government” he could remember.

“This is the first government that I can recall which has quite explicitly said, ‘we’ll have less of that,’ not ‘we’ll have more of it,’” said Shaw.

“So, this really is an awkward, unsettled moment.”

Culture wars

New Zealand’s voters in October stripped Hipkins’ Labour Party of 31 seats to almost half their previous stature in the country’s single-chamber parliament – a crushing defeat that leaves them in an awkward position.

But the victors may never feel completely comfortable either. New Zealand’s mixed member proportional voting system means parties rarely govern alone.

Luxon’s National Party, which won just over 38% of the vote is forced to govern in coalition with the far smaller, and less moderate New Zealand First and ACT New Zealand parties. Both junior coalition parties will drag Luxon to the right.

New Zealand First has long opposed the official use of Māori terms, from road signs to government departments. The party says the widespread practice of referring to New Zealand by the country’s Māori name, Aotearoa, is an example of “virtue signalling and politically correct extremism.” Luxon says his government will adopt an “English first” approach.

ACT is forcing Luxon to entertain the possibility of a future referendum on the principles of New Zealand’s Treaty of Waitangi, a document signed by the colonial British regime and Māori in 1840 that enshrines principles of co-governance between indigenous and non-indigenous New Zealanders.

While Luxon says the proposed referendum would “go no further” than a debate by a parliamentary select committee, the open questioning of the usefulness of the treaty may diminish it as a historic declaration of equality, warns academic Shaw from Massey University.

For Tupara, from the Māori Women’s League, New Zealand’s current political moment is not just a passing culture war.

“We have been fighting the government since the 1800s, so this is not new to us,” she said.

“This fight for our own identity is nothing new to us. I think the level of opposition to what we have achieved for ourselves is something that I haven’t seen in my lifetime.”

Ngarewa-Packer’s Māori political party wants to harness the power of that historic fight to win modern political battles in New Zealand.

She says she has a broad coalition of progressive New Zealanders who will support her, Māori and non-Māori.

“Within less than 72 hours, we were able to mobilize tens of thousands across the country, with no resourcing, completely using our social media. It was a test to ourselves, to see if we had the capability, the capacity to mobilize an alliance,” she said.

“Sometimes you need this revolting, backwards politicking to remind people why we participate.”

Abdoulaye Diabate faced a life-threatening bout of malaria when he was just five years old. Diabate narrowly survived the mosquito-borne disease, but cousins ages three and four were not as fortunate.

Diabate, who now heads medical entomology and parasitology at Burkina Faso’s Research Institute in Health Sciences, is developing an innovative technique that could potentially wipe out malaria-transmitting mosquito species by altering their genes.

The Burkina Faso-born scientist and professor was awarded the 2023 Falling Walls Prize for Science and Innovation Management for his research, which organizers said “offers hope for malaria control.”

Diabate was named in September as the only African among 10 global winners of the prestigious award for this year and was also recognized by the Falling Walls Foundation for “contributing some of the world’s most advanced work on genetic solutions to malaria.”

The Falling Walls Foundation is a nonprofit organization dedicated to fostering breakthrough thinking.

A leading cause of death

Malaria is a leading cause of death in Diabate’s country, where nearly all of the West African nation’s 22 million inhabitants, especially children, are at risk of the disease, according to the World Health Organization.

Malaria killed nearly 19,000 people in Burkina Faso in 2021, the most recent data from the WHO regional office for Africa showed.

The disease is also one of the main causes of death in the wider African region, which shoulders the world’s largest malaria burden.

For many years, malaria control interventions, including the use of insecticide-treated bed nets, have helped to reduce transmission and deaths in affected countries.

However, “malaria deaths remain unacceptably high, and cases have continued to increase since 2015,” WHO said in April, adding that the upswing in infections was due to the rising cost of providing those interventions as well as the “biological threats” that enable drug resistance and aid vector mosquitoes in developing immunity to insecticides.

Malaria killed an estimated 619,000 people globally in 2021, according to WHO’s last published data.

Around 96% of those deaths happened in Africa, the health body said, adding that 80% percent of casualties on the continent “were among children under the age of 5.”

“Although bed nets are doing a fantastic job … we now have widespread insecticide resistance in the different species of mosquitoes, specifically those that are transmitting malaria,” he said.

“This makes it difficult to defeat malaria with these conventional tools. This is why it is extremely important to innovate and get new tools that can complement the existing ones. (Otherwise) in no way would we be able to defeat malaria.”

The ‘game changer’

Diabate said he is optimistic that his vector control tool for malaria – described as “gene drive technology” – could be the “game-changer” when rolled out.

Malaria is transmitted through the bite of female Anopheles mosquitoes that are infected with the parasitic disease. Male mosquitoes do not bite so are unable to transmit malaria.

With gene drive, female mosquito species that transmit the disease are prevented from producing new female offspring through the release of gene-edited males that are made sterile into the environment.

Diabate said the female mosquito population would be depleted and malaria transmission halted.

“When the (gene-edited) mosquitoes are released in the field … they will spread across the entire mosquito population and cut malaria transmission right away,” he said, adding that gene drive was a more sustainable and budget-friendly malaria control intervention.

“The genetically modified mosquitoes are the ones to do the job for you … unlike the other (malaria control) interventions where humans run from place to place to deliver.

“The good thing about this technology that we are developing is that if it works as expected, it’s not only going to be cost-effective, but it will also be sustainable and can be deployed in remote and difficult-to-access areas in Africa. We believe that once the technology is ready and we release it and it works as expected, it should be able to be the game-changer.”

However, it may take a few more years to roll out gene drive technology in Africa, Diabate said.

In 2019, Diabate’s vector control research alliance, Target Malaria, conducted the first phase of the project by releasing Africa’s pioneer batch of genetically edited mosquitoes in Bana, a village in Western Burkina Faso.

More than 14,000 sterile male mosquitoes were let loose the same day during the controlled release, according to Target Malaria, which added that 527 of the released mosquitoes were recaptured after 20 days.

“While the release was not aimed at impacting malaria transmission, it was a stepping one for the team to gather information, build knowledge, and develop local skills, the research alliance further said in a blog post, adding “this analysis and the data gathered is providing invaluable insights that we are already using in the next phases of our research.”

There have been similar projects targeting mosquitoes DNA.

In 2013, a US biotech company, Oxitec, developed gene-modified mosquitoes that pass on a deadly gene to female species of the Aedes aegypti mosquito that transmits yellow fever, as well as the dengue and Zika viruses.

The offspring of the gene-modified female mosquitoes die in the larval stage.

In 2016, the International Atomic Energy Agency also launched an X-ray powered technique to sterilize male mosquitoes in Latin America and the Caribbean, aimed at reducing the reproduction of female offspring that transmit Zika.

Diabate’s research appears to be among the first using gene editing to target male mosquitoes.

Ecological concerns

Health authorities outside Burkina Faso have welcomed Diabate’s gene drive technology, but questions remain about its impact on the environment when fully released.

Every living creature, even if it appears dangerous or harmful to humans, fulfills important tasks in its habitat.

Save our Seeds, German-based advocacy group

“Gene drive technology has to do with modifying genetic materials … so you never know the new vector that you’ll have and what this will mean to the environment or the ecology,” he said. “It’s something that researchers need to look at.”

German-based advocacy group Save Our Seeds (SOS) has campaigned strongly against gene drive technology, saying its impact on ecosystems cannot be predicted.

“Every living creature, even if it appears dangerous or harmful to humans, fulfills important tasks in its habitat,” SOS said on its website. “The extermination or even manipulation of a species will therefore have consequences for the entire ecosystem,” it added.

The advocacy group explained that mosquitoes are among the major sources of food for many animals such as birds and dragonflies, while recalling that “in the Camargue, a nature reserve in southern France, the decimation of mosquitoes with a biological pesticide … led to a reduction in the number and diversity of birds and dragonflies.”

Diabate said he has dedicated his life to fighting malaria, which he said took a toll on his personal life.

“Malaria has affected every aspect of my personal life: from nearly dying of the disease as a toddler to taking care of my loved ones every time they get sick. I have therefore decided to dedicate my life to fighting this disease that stifles the development of Africa and breaks the future of millions of African lives,” he said.

No, this isn’t the plot of a new historical thriller but what has emerged from what’s been dubbed the Vatican’s “trial of the century,” which examined a litany of financial misconduct costing the Holy See millions of dollars.

The two-and-a-half-year trial in Vatican City’s criminal court has involved 10 defendants including, for the first time, a cardinal.

He is Giovanni Angelo Becciu, once one of the most powerful figures in the Vatican, who held the position of “sostituto” (“substitute”) in the Holy See’s Secretariat of State, a papal chief of staff equivalent.

In this role, the 75-year-old Sardinian prelate had walk-in privileges to see the pope when he needed and was even tipped as a potential future pope.

He is now facing five and a half years in prison, after being convicted of several counts of embezzlement. Becciu is the first cardinal to be convicted and sentenced by a Vatican court.

The cardinal has repeatedly denied the charges against him and after the verdict his lawyer said he would appeal.

Before the trial began however, the pope removed his once close aide from his position as leader of the Vatican’s department for canonizing saints, along with his right to vote in a future conclave.

The trial has been a critical test for Pope Francis and his long running battle to bring transparency and accountability to the Vatican’s notoriously murky finances. Throughout his pontificate, the pope has sought to clean up the Vatican’s bank, establish a financial regulatory system and crack down on back-handers and conflicts of interest.

The London investment

At the heart of the trial was the Vatican’s purchase of a vast property in southwest London’s Chelsea neighborhood, originally built as a car showroom for the Harrods department store. The Holy See spent around $400 million on the deal over several years but ended up with losses of $150 million after eventually selling the asset. Vatican prosecutors argued that the church was swindled out of millions by paying too much for the property while a series of middlemen made huge sums and those in charge of the deal were negligent.

Initially, the Holy See invested $200 million in a fund run by Raffaele Mincione, a London-based Italian financier, who controlled a 45% stake in the Chelsea property. The initial investment was authorized when Cardinal Becciu was chief of staff. The other half of the building was owned by Mincione.

The plan was to turn the building into apartments but the Vatican became dissatisfied with the investment which prosecutors argued left the church with heavy losses. The building, they say, had been overvalued by Mincione and the Secretariat of State was not informed of a £75 million ($96 million) mortgage on the property. Becciu’s successor, Edgar Peña Parra, decided to buy the building outright but had to pay a hefty fee to Mincione.

Then, another financier, Gianluigi Torzi, was bought in to help buy the property but he is accused of structuring the deal which left him in control of the building and the Vatican purchasing an “empty box”. Top Vatican officials said they were not properly informed about this and then had to pay Torzi millions to get out of the deal.

The Vatican announced the trial would commence in July 2021, with prosecutors depositing a 500-page indictment detailing the alleged crimes.

Both Torzi and Mincione were among the 10 defendants in the case, who were all convicted on some counts and acquitted on others.

Torzi stood trial for extortion, money laundering, fraud and embezzlement and was given a six-year sentence. Mincione was charged with embezzlement, abuse of office, fraud and money laundering and given a five-and-a-half-year sentence.

Both denied the charges against them. Mincione has also launched a legal action against the Holy See in the London courts.

Although regulators ruled in 2021 that the Holy See had made progress with its financial reforms, they insisted it needed to bolster its efforts in prosecuting wrongdoing, including that of senior clerics.

Then came the news that the trial would go ahead.

For this to happen, Francis had to change the law to allow bishops and cardinals to stand trial in a Vatican tribunal. Previously they had been immune from prosecution.

The cardinal’s lady

Becciu was in charge when the initial investment in the London property deal using church funds was approved. He was also charged with embezzling more than €125,000 ($136,000) of church funds in a Sardinian charity run by his brother, and authorizing €575,000 ($618,000) in payments from the Secretariat of State to Cecilia Marogna, a “security consultant” purportedly to help free a nun kidnapped in Africa. Vatican prosecutors argued this money was used for personal purposes by Marogna including over $54,000 spent on clothing, footwear and fashion accessories from high-end brands such as Prada, Gucci and Hermes.

Marogna, who is in her 40s, has been dubbed the “cardinal’s lady” given her association with Becciu. During the trial court was shown images taken by Marogna inside the cardinal’s apartment and posted on social media with captions reading “feeling at home” and “my paradise.”

When Vatican police told Becciu that the money transferred to Marogna was not being used as intended, he asked them not to let anyone know “because it would bring serious harm to him and his family.” During an interrogation before the trial, one witness was asked by prosecutors whether Becciu and Marogna had an intimate relationship, which he denied. Both Becciu and Marogna have denied an improper relationship.

Marogna was handed a three-year-and-nine-month sentence after being convicted of misappropriating hundreds of thousands of euros authorised by Becciu.

Marogna has denied any wrongdoing, and told Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera that she spent the Vatican funds on fees for her and her collaborators, travel and other living expenses. She insisted that she had developed a “network of relationships in Africa and the Middle East” to help Vatican diplomats and missionaries.

Also during the trial the court heard a phone call Becciu had secretly recorded with the pope where he sought to confirm with the pontiff that Francis had authorized payments to free the kidnapped nun. According to a transcript, the pope said he “vaguely” remembered a discussion about payments but repeatedly asked Becciu explain what he wanted in writing. 

Ongoing battle to reform

The pope’s battle to reform Vatican finances has revealed the problem of placing clerics, with no professional financial training, in charge of large financial portfolios. As a result of the London property investigation, Francis ordered that the funds controlled by the Holy See’s Secretariat of State be managed by a different Vatican entity where an experienced accountant, Fabio Gasperini, oversees day-to-day operations. In 2019, it was estimated the Holy See’s Secretariat of State managed assets of roughly $1 billion.

The Holy See has a property portfolio in cities including Rome, Paris and London, which came about following compensation paid to it by Italy for the loss of the papal states, the parts of Italy under papal rule until the 19th century. In this 1929 deal, the Lateran Treaty, the Italian authorities also recognized Vatican City as a sovereign entity. The bulk of the Vatican’s properties are in Rome and used to house church employees. Funding for the Vatican comes largely through donations made by Catholics from across the world and revenue from tourists visiting the Sistine Chapel and Vatican museums.

During the Francis pontificate, the Vatican has begun to publish annual financial statements, which recently revealed a shortfall in income, while the Pope has sought to centralize investments to enhance accountability. The London property investment deal was also flagged as suspicious by the Vatican’s internal monitoring system in 2019, triggering the inquiry which led to the trial.

Vatican finances have long been a source of scandal, and this case has brought back memories of Roberto Calvi, the man known as “God’s banker,” who was found hanged under Blackfriars Bridge in London in 1982. He had been chairman of the Banco Ambrosiano at the time of its collapse, with the Vatican bank its main shareholder.

In 2019, the pope described the London investment deal as a “scandal” while this week he told Vatican auditors that the “lure of corruption is so dangerous that we must be extremely vigilant.”

Plenty of steps have been made by Francis to tackle the Vatican’s finances. The trial shows there’s plenty of work to do. The pope has often warned: “The devil enters through the pockets.”

An investigation is underway after a tragic incident on Friday that saw the Israel Defense Forces shoot and kill three Israelis in Gaza who had been taken hostage by Hamas during the group’s October 7 terror attack.

Here’s what we know.

What the Israeli military said happened

The men were killed while waving a white flag in violation of IDF rules of engagement, an IDF official said on Saturday.

The official – who spoke to journalists on the condition of anonymity to speak freely about an ongoing investigation – said the trio emerged shirtless, waving their flag, from a building “tens of meters” away from a group of Israeli troops in the Gaza City neighborhood of Shejaiya.

At least one soldier felt threatened and opened fire, killing two of the men immediately. The third was wounded and ran back inside the building. The Israeli unit overheard a cry for help in Hebrew, at which time the brigade commander ordered his troops to stop shooting. However, there was another burst of gunfire. The third hostage died later.

It’s unclear which hostage survived initially and when he was killed, the official added.

Shejaiya has been the scene of fierce fighting in recent days, with Israeli forces confronting ambush attempts and attacks that involved suicide bombers or assailants dressed in civilian clothes, according to the IDF.

IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari broke the news of the incident on Friday calling it “a sad and painful incident.”

Hagari said the IDF assumed the three Israelis who were killed had either escaped or been abandoned by their captors due to the fighting in Shejaiya.

The IDF is aware of a building marked “SOS” a few hundred feet from where the hostages were shot to death. Authorities are investigating if there is a connection between it and the captives who were killed on Friday.

What the IDF is doing to prevent similar tragedies

“What we have told our troops is to be extra vigilant and do one more safety check before dealing with kinetics with any threat that they face on the battlefield,” Conricus said, “but it is a very challenging environment that our troops are in.”

The IDF alleged earlier Friday that Hamas has attempted to use dolls and backpacks with speakers playing sounds of crying or children speaking in Hebrew to lure Israeli soldiers into a trap.

Who were the hostages?

All three hostages were young men. Yotam Haim and Alon Shimriz were kidnapped from Kibbutz Kfar Aza, while Samer Talalka was taken near Kibbutz Nir Am.

Talalka, 25, was a member of Israel’s Bedouin community and the eldest of 10 children. He lived in the town of Hura and worked with his father and brothers at a chicken hatchery near Kibbutz Nir Am.

On October 7, he was with his father at the chicken hatchery and told his sister in a phone call that he had been injured by terrorist gunfire, until the call disconnected, according to the Israeli Hostages and Missing Persons Families Forum.

Haim, 28, was gifted musician and heavy metal fan. He had played the drums for 20 years and was supposed to perform at a Metal Music Festival in Tel Aviv on October 7th with his band, Persephore. Yotam last spoke with his family that morning. He told them his house had burned down before losing contact with them at 10:44 a.m., soon after which he was kidnapped by Hamas, according to the family forum.

Less is known about Shimriz, but his family, like those of Talalka and Haim, had spoken publicly about their ordeal

Haim’s mother, Iris, had told Israel’s Channel 11 earlier this week that she had faith her son would return even without raising her voice at the government.

“Some people think that if they don’t shout, no one will bring their children back. I tell them: we can do it peacefully and through a respectful dialogue. The children will come back, I have no doubt,” she said.

What’s the reaction been?

Some of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s critics see the killings as proof that the Israeli government is more concerned with eradicating Hamas than it is with freeing the remaining hostages held by the group – the two key goals of the military operation in Gaza.

Before news of three hostages’ deaths broke, 132 captives were believed to still in Gaza, of whom 112 were thought to still be alive, Israeli authorities said Friday.

Rallies were held on Friday night in Tel Aviv to demand immediate action to bring back the rest of those being held in Gaza. Demonstrators chanted “everyone now” and temporarily blocked a main road that runs through the city, during the three-hour demonstration.

“We want to do everything can to bring back the hostages,” one said “We are asking our government our cabinet to do the best they can to find more solutions because our friends and our family now

Among the demonstrators was Noam Tibon, a retired IDF major general who made headlines for personally driving south on October 7 to rescue his family from Hamas militants.

“The clock is ticking, and it’s against the hostages,” he said.

How the government is responding

Netanyahu has been under pressure domestically, both over his failure to anticipate the attacks and to bring the hostages home, but so far there seems little appetite to remove him with the conflict ongoing.

While the killing of the three hostages has added urgency to the conversations, the source said, it’s unclear if it incident will cost the Netanyahu politically or lead to any major changes in either government or the military.

The longtime Israeli prime minister and other members country’s war cabinet reacted to the killings on social media, offering condolences and vowing to return the hostages home safely.

“This an unbearable tragedy. The whole state of Israel is grieving this evening. My heart goes out to the families aching during their time of immense grief,” the prime minister said. “Even on this difficult evening we shall dress our wounds, learn the lessons and continue carrying this supreme effort to return all our hostages home safely.”

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant called their deaths “a painful incident for every Israeli,” while lawmaker Benny Gantz, a former rival of Netanyahu’s and now part of a wartime coalition government, said his heart was “shattered after learning about this tragedy.”

Both leaders indicated that the war would continue. Gallant said Israel “must remain resilient and continue operating,” while Gantz said the country’s “responsibility is to win the war, and part of that victory would be to return the hostages home.”