Actor Lee Sun-kyun’s sudden death this week is the latest in a string of shock celebrity losses in South Korea, a country with one of the world’s highest suicide rates and where public figures are often expected to be paragons.

Lee, who received acclaim for his role as Park Dong-ik, the father of the wealthy Park family in the Academy Award-winning “Parasite,” was found dead in his car on Wednesday morning in what police said was a suspected suicide. His funeral was expected to be held later on Friday.

At the time of his death the 48-year-old father of two was being investigated by police over allegations of illegal drug use and had recently been through multiple rounds of lengthy questioning.

Lee’s death comes as South Korea has seen a spate of suspected suicides among its celebrities in recent years, especially young K-pop stars.

Each time these deaths have reignited conversations about the mental well-being of South Korean celebrities and public figures, casting a spotlight on the pressures they face in the competitive and stressful Korean entertainment industry and the pitfalls for those deemed to have made transgressions.

In December 2017, superstar Kim Jong-hyun, better known as Jonghyun, took his own life at the age of 27. Two years later K-pop singer Sulli, formerly of the band f(x), was found dead at her home at the age of 25 in an apparent suicide.

Around six weeks later, fellow K-pop artist Goo Hara, formerly a member of girl band Kara, was found dead at 28. Police would not comment on a cause of death, but Goo previously revealed she was suffering from depression.

And in April this year, K-pop fans around the world were left heartbroken by the loss of Moon Bin, a member of the popular boy band Astro, at the age of 25.

K-pop idols in particular are known to be subject to intense scrutiny and high expectations from their strict management, which has been linked to a mental health crisis in the industry.

For years it was not uncommon for K-pop stars to be expected not to have relationships, with some even having a “no dating” clause in their contracts.

Attitudes toward dating have slowly begun to change, in part because fans have become more willing to accept relationships between stars. But South Korea’s entertainment industry remains a high-pressure environment with intense training regimens and expectations from fans and industry power brokers alike.

Teacher protests

South Korea’s mental health crisis stretches across class divides and touches all parts of society.

In 2021, the suicide rate in South Korea was 26 out of every 100,000 people, according to the country’s Health and Welfare Ministry. South Korea also has the highest rate of youth suicide among the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) nations. In Japan, the OECD’s figure is 15.7 per 100,000 people while in the United States it is 14.1 per 100,000.

In September, hundreds of thousands of teachers across the country held mass protests after the suspected suicide of a teacher that was widely blamed on South Korea’s high-pressure education system and the burden it places on teachers.

Government data shows 100 public school teachers in South Korea – mostly elementary school teachers – took their own lives from January 2018 to June 2023.

South Korean politics has also seen high-profile cases. In 2009, former president Roh Moo-hyun took his own life amid an investigation into a bribery scandal that had tarnished his reputation.

Following Sulli and Goo’s deaths, Paik Jong-woo, a psychiatrist and the director of the Korea Suicide Prevention Center, attributed part of the high suicide rate to social stigma. Fewer South Koreans who suffer from depression seek help than in other developed countries, studies show.

Those in the entertainment industry might be especially at risk, according to Paik.

“Artists tend to experience emotions more vividly and because their job is being loved by the public, they cannot help but be more sensitive to public views,” he said.

Paik explained that celebrities often cannot access mental health professionals due to fear of public shame and lack of time in their schedules. An average day for a K-pop star can be 16 hours or longer, filled with everything from dance practice to singing lessons, language class and camera training.

“There needs to be special attention to prevent celebrity suicides,” Paik said.

Lee Gyu-tag, a professor of cultural studies at George Mason University Korea in Incheon, thinks South Korea’s intesely online culture also plays a role.

“Whether they did drugs or committed illegal crimes, if it is not a serious mistake, they should be punished by law, and that’s it. But the public seem to think that people in the entertainment business deserve criticism or shameful comments on the internet.”

Questions over police probe

Lee’s death came while he was being investigated for illegal drug use at time when South Korea’s conservative government has been pushing a crackdown on drugs and the police are under pressure to deliver results.

Like many places in East and Southeast Asia, South Korea has some of the world’s strictest drug laws with lengthy prison sentences and an intense social stigma attached to drug use.

According to South Korean police, Lee had claimed he was tricked into using drugs and subsequently blackmailed by an individual. Lee filed a lawsuit against the alleged blackmailer, according to police, who added they had received a tip about his alleged drug use before he filed suit.

But throughout the investigation, Lee’s drug tests had all come back negative, police added. Police have since closed the drug investigation following’s Lee’s death.

A lawyer for Lee, who did not want to be named due to the sensitive nature of the case, said his client was upset that the police investigation was built on the word of people he accused of blackmailing him, rather than on scientific evidence. He had repeatedly denied intentionally taking illegal drugs.

There “was a dispute between Lee’s testimonies and the blackmailers’ testimonies,” the lawyer said, adding that details of the investigation being leaked to the media also caused Lee pain.

Incheon police offered their condolences to Lee’s family on Wednesday, expressing regret that details of his drug investigation had been prematurely made public before its completion, despite their efforts to prevent it.

“It’s difficult to say that the details came from the police, as there are other agencies in the legal system that have access to such information,” police added.

South Korean law prohibits those involved in a criminal investigation from releasing facts about the suspect before a public indictment is released.

How to get help: In the US, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255. The International Association for Suicide Prevention and Befrienders Worldwide also can provide contact information for crisis centers around the world.

Israel’s army chief said troops failed in their mission to rescue three hostages mistakenly killed in Gaza earlier this month as the military on Thursday published its report into the incident.

Herzi Halevi, chief of the General Staff of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), said the shootings “could have been prevented,” but he determined there was “no malice in the event and the soldiers carried out the right action to the best of their understanding of the event at that moment.”

Yotam Haim, Alon Shamriz and Samer Talalka were captured by Hamas on October 7 and taken to Gaza. The three men were accidentally killed during an IDF operation around the Gaza City neighborhood of Shejaiya on December 15 in an incident that shocked Israeli society.

The report into their deaths concluded that Israeli command ranks had information about the presence of hostages in the area where they were killed and “even took actions to prevent strikes on locations suspected of having hostages.”

But the investigation also found that Israeli forces in the field had “insufficient awareness” of the possibility that hostages would approach them or that they would encounter them other than as part of a special operation to free the Israelis held.

According to the findings, on December 15, an Israeli soldier fired toward three hostages “identified as threats,” killing two of them. The third hostage fled, and the battalion commander gave an order to hold fire to identify the third person.

After the commander heard someone screaming “help” in Hebrew, he called on the person to come toward the soldiers; the hostage emerged from a building and moved toward the troops, the report said. Two soldiers didn’t hear the commander’s orders to hold fire “due to noise from a nearby tank” and fatally shot the third hostage, according to the investigation.

The probe also concluded that the “hostages were walking shirtless, and one of them was waving a white flag, standing at a point with limited visibility relative to the position of the soldier that fired the shot.”

In the days before the killing of the hostages, the report said Israeli soldiers heard cries for help in Hebrew coming from a building while troops fought Hamas gunmen, adding that the soldiers thought it was an attempt to trap them. Also, a camera that was mounted on a military dog during the fight captured the voices of the hostages crying for help.

That same day, a note reading “Help” in Hebrew was found at the exit of a tunnel, the report claimed, which Israeli soldiers interpreted as an attempt by Hamas to lure them.

On December 14, Israeli drone footage identified signs reading “SOS” and “Help, 3 hostages” on a building 200 meters (656 feet) from where the hostages were killed the next day, the report said, claiming the Israeli military suspected this was a trap after blue barrels that it says are commonly found in rigged areas were spotted nearby.

Halevi, the military IDF chief, concluded that the killing of the hostages shouldn’t have happened and didn’t match up to the risk of the situation.

“The standard operating procedures are necessary, and they are also intended to protect us, so that we do not kill our own forces,” he said. “They set and impact fateful decisions, as happened in this event.”

“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.”

Who were the hostages?

All three hostages were young men. Haim and Shimriz were kidnapped from Kibbutz Kfar Aza, while 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 a 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 7 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 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.

Negotiations to release the more than 100 hostages still held in Gaza by Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups have yielded little results in recent weeks.

“We’re holding talks even during these very moments,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday at a meeting with hostages’ families. “I can’t elaborate on the status – we’re operating in order to return everyone.”

A year ago, a resolute President Volodymyr Zelensky traveled direct from the battlefield of Bakhmut to address the US Congress and meet with President Joe Biden. He was feted as a hero; Ukraine’s determination to resist Russian aggression met with strong bipartisan backing in Washington.

One year on, the outlook looks much grimmer. A long-anticipated Ukrainian offensive in the south has made scant progress. Russia appears to have weathered international sanctions, for now, and has converted its economy into a war machine.

The Russian way of war, absorbing hideous losses of men and materiel but throwing yet more into the fight, has blunted the Ukrainian military’s tactical and technological edge, as its top general admitted in a candid essay last month.

The mood in Moscow seems grimly determined: the goals of the “special military operation” will be achieved, and the fighting will continue until they are.

As the long frontline becomes ever more calcified, the Kremlin senses greater skepticism among Kyiv’s Western backers that Ukraine can recover the 17% of its territory still occupied by Russian forces.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is relishing the much more partisan atmosphere in Washington, where many in the Republican Party are questioning the purpose of sending Ukraine another $61 billion worth of aid as requested by the Biden administration, assessing that it will achieve little on the battlefield.

At his first year-end news conference since the conflict began, Putin scoffed: “Ukraine produces almost nothing today, everything is coming from the West, but the free stuff is going to run out some day, and it seems it already is.”

At the same time, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban blocked a $55 billion EU package of financial aid for Ukraine, prompting one German politician to say that it was like having Putin himself sitting at the table.

That jeopardizes government spending on everything from salaries to hospitals.

Zelensky, who by his own recent admission is tired, has an ever-harder job as Ukraine’s chief salesman, with events in the Middle East diverting attention from Ukraine as the number-one international crisis.

On the first anniversary of the invasion, he predicted that “2023 will be the year of our victory!” He’s unlikely to make the same optimistic forecast for the coming year.

Russia is not without its own vulnerabilities, but they are more long-term. The conflict has exacerbated its demographic crisis through emigration and battlefield losses. Nearly 750,000 people left Russia in 2022; analysts expect an even higher number will have voted with their feet this year.

Labor shortages are stoking rising wages and therefore inflation. Evading sanctions and maintaining industrial production comes at a price, with much of that production now devoted to replacing the stunning battlefield losses and the budget deficit exploding accordingly.

The long-term prognosis for the Russian economy is grim – and that may be Putin’s most fundamental legacy.

But as the economist John Maynard Keynes once said, “In the long run we are all dead.” In the short-term Putin appears unassailable. Reelection in March is a formality (the Kremlin has already acknowledged as much.) Contrast that with the US, where a febrile year of campaigning might end with Donald Trump preparing for his second term. That is Kyiv’s nightmare and Moscow’s dream.

The deeply partisan mood in Congress has scuppered the Biden’s administration’s request for further aid for Kyiv. Currently allocated funds for military equipment are nearly drained. One Democratic senator, Chris Murphy, said starkly: “We are about to abandon Ukraine.”

The mantra in Western capitals on supporting Ukraine has been “as long as it takes.” But standing next to Zelensky this month, Biden said the US would support Ukraine “as long as we can.”

Battlefield slog

While the global metrics for Ukraine deteriorate, so the frontlines offer little cheer.

The much-anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive launched in June was meant to display the superiority of NATO’s strategy of combined arms warfare, drilled into newly-minted Ukrainian brigades who were trained in muddy fields in Germany. But it was alien to Ukrainian military culture and was not matched by superiority in the skies.

What should have been a dash south to the Black Sea became a quagmire in dense minefields, with Western armor picked off from the air by Russian drones and aviation.

Ukrainian units took at most 200 square kilometers of territory over six months. The goals of reaching the coastline, Crimea and splitting Russian forces in the south remained a distant dream.

With the frontlines frozen, Kyiv’s intelligence agencies have turned to more spectacular attacks: sinking a Russian landing ship in Crimea this week and even sabotaging railway lines as far as the Russian Far East. Success in the Black Sea has allowed for relatively safe passage for merchant ships, despite Moscow abandoning a UN-brokered deal last summer.

However, despite their audacity, such operations won’t alter the fundamental balance of the conflict.

Zaluzhny put it bluntly: “The level of our technological development today has put both us and our enemies in a stupor.” The use of surveillance and strike drones deprives both sides of the element of surprise within the confines of the battlefield.

“The simple fact is that we see everything the enemy is doing, and they see everything we are doing.”

But the Russians’ vast reserves of manpower and hardware (Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu boasted that he could raise 25 million men if necessary) mean they can continue bludgeoning the smaller Ukrainian military, making incremental gains at enormous cost.

So it was around Bakhmut last winter; perhaps the same will apply to the ruined Donetsk town of Avdiivka in the next few weeks.

The pool of military recruits in Ukraine has substantially shrunk; battlefield losses have deprived the military of tens of thousands of experienced soldiers and mid-rank officers. “Sooner or later we are going to find that we simply don’t have enough people to fight,” Zaluzhny told the Economist in November.

The arrival of F-16s fighter jets in the spring will undoubtedly help the Ukrainian air force challenge Russian combat planes and support their own ground forces, but they will be no silver bullet. Basic training is one thing; flying into the teeth of Russian air defenses another.

The same would apply even if the US agreed to supply longer-range Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) to Ukraine. (UK-supplied Storm Shadow missiles have helped target the Russian rear.)

In any event, the paralysis over funding has blocked the pipeline of US weaponry and Europe does not have the capacity to fill the gap.

Some leading analysts conclude it’s time for a clear-eyed reassessment.

“Ukraine and the West are on an unsustainable trajectory, one characterized by a glaring mismatch between ends and the available means,” write Richard Haass and Charles Kupchan in Foreign Affairs.

Ukraine’s goal of recovering all its territory is “out of reach,” they say bluntly. “Where we are looks at best like a costly deadlock.”

They recommend that Ukraine shifts to a defensive posture in 2024 to stem losses, which would “shore up Western support by demonstrating that Kyiv has a workable strategy aimed at attainable goals.”

The Russian military, which has by and large proved inept in offensive operations, would thereby find it even more difficult to take ground.

To others, such a shift would essentially reward aggression, enabling Russia to pause and regroup, with potentially dangerous consequences for others in Russia’s near-abroad. It would also send the wrong message about US commitment to other allies, such as Taiwan. And it’s a non-starter, politically, in Kyiv.

Biden said during Zelensky’s visit that “Putin is banking on the United States failing to deliver for Ukraine. We must, we must, we must prove him wrong.”

It smacked of desperation. Haass and Kupchan say, “Ukraine would be wise to devote incoming resources to its long-term security and prosperity instead of expending it on the battlefield for little gain.”

There are certainly signs of tensions within Ukrainian society as the conflict nears its second anniversary and the economy struggles to start growing again, after shrinking by one-third. The longer several million Ukrainians live elsewhere in Europe, the less likely they are to come back.

For now Zelensky and his inner circle show no sign of compromise. Zelensky won’t countenance a truce or negotiations. “For us it would mean leaving this wound open for future generations,” he told TIME in November.

Instead, barring some unlikely collapse in morale on either side, the same towns and villages destroyed over the last two years will still be fought over in the next. Ukraine will have the means to survive, but not to win.

SpaceX’s hulking Falcon Heavy rocket returned to the skies Thursday evening, and this time it launched a mysterious spacecraft for the US military that will carry out cutting-edge research.

The rocket lifted off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 8:07 p.m. ET, carrying the military’s X-37B space plane — which is uncrewed and operates autonomously — to unprecedented altitudes. The launch streamed live on SpaceX’s website. The side boosters returned to Earth and safely touched down.

It is not clear, however, exactly where the space plane is going.

The X-37B’s activities in space have long been the subject of fascination and speculation in the space community as amateur enthusiasts race to track its whereabouts and share theories about its activities.

Resembling a miniature NASA space shuttle with the windows blacked out, the reusable and fully autonomous X-37B has been known to carry out research on concepts such as relaying solar energy from space for use back on Earth and studying the effects of radiation on seeds used to grow food.

And this mission — the seventh trip to space for an X-37B plane — promises to be even more intriguing than earlier flights.

A powerful ride

This launch marked the first time the space plane has hitched a ride on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy, one of the most powerful operational rockets in the world.

Previously, the X-37B has launched on the SpaceX Falcon 9 vehicle and the Atlas V rocket built by United Launch Alliance, a joint venture between Lockheed Martin and Boeing.

The Falcon Heavy produces more thrust than both of those rockets combined.

The launch via the Falcon Heavy could indicate that X-37B is destined for more distant orbits, perhaps even to the moon or Mars, suggested Paul Graziani, CEO of COMSPOC, a company dedicated to tracking objects in space.

If it does travel much deeper into the cosmos than earlier flights, it could be far more difficult for sky-gazers on Earth to determine where the vehicle is.

If the military doesn’t want people to track the X-37B, Graziani added, the vehicle can be hidden in the glare of the sun or by various other means — including changing its position often. The X-37B has already proven on previous flights that it’s capable of making multiple maneuvers in space.

COMSPOC will attempt to search for the vehicle if the spacecraft winds up in geosynchronous orbit, which lies about 22,400 miles (36,000 kilometers) from Earth and is where most massive communications satellites operate. Geosynchronous orbit is where the company focuses its sensors for tracking satellites, said Graziani and Bob Hall, COMSPOC’s director of operations integration.

“I think it’s one of the most interesting things that’s happened in space in a long time, whatever it’s going to do,” Graziani said of the X-37B launch.

Space technology innovations

The X-37B makes it possible for the United States to carry out experiments to understand how to improve ongoing and upcoming space operations and push the boundaries of what’s possible, according to a statement by Gen. B. Chance Saltzman, chief of space operations.

Among the research on board this mission is a NASA experiment that aims to find ways to sustain astronauts on future deep-space missions. Called Seeds-2, it will “expose plant seeds to the harsh radiation environment of long-duration spaceflight” and build on research carried out on previous X-37B missions.

Learning how to grow food in the harsh, soilless environment of outer space could be crucial for astronauts on lengthy missions to the moon or beyond — places where it’s more difficult to deliver fresh supplies.

It’s unclear how long the spacecraft will spend in orbit for this stint, though historically each X-37B flight has been longer than the last.

The X-37B has already spent more than 3,700 days in space on other uncrewed missions. When it returns to Earth, it will land on a runway, much like an airplane swooping down from the skies.

Challenging China

This launch came after more than two weeks of delays. SpaceX was prepared to lift off on December 10. The launch was pushed off twice because of weather and issues with the ground pad before SpaceX abruptly delayed the mission indefinitely to “perform additional system checkouts.”

But during the downtime, China — which the US government considers its chief competitor in a modern space race — sent its own secretive spacecraft into orbit.

Little about the spacecraft from China is known. Some in the industry speculate it is a doppelganger of the X-37B in form and function, though no official photos of the vehicle have been released.

China’s state-run Xinhua News Agency reported that the clandestine spacecraft launched aboard a Long March 2F rocket.

The agency’s post added only that during its stay in space, the vehicle will test out reusable space technology and carry out unspecified science experiments “for the peaceful use of space.”

It is not clear how long China’s space plane will spend in orbit.

The wave of attacks began overnight into Friday and struck nationwide, with blasts reported in the capital Kyiv, as well as at a maternity hospital in the central city of Dnipro, the eastern city of Kharkiv, the southeastern port of Odesa, and the western city of Lviv, far from the frontlines.

“It’s been a long time since we have seen so many enemy targets on our monitors in all regions and all directions,” Yurii Ihnat, spokesperson for Ukraine’s air force, told national television. “Everything was being fired.”

Russia used 158 drones and missiles, including hypersonic Kinzhal missiles, cruise missiles and Shahed drones, to strike targets in Kyiv, the east, south and west of the country, Ukraine’s air force said.

“Today the enemy has struck a powerful blow. There are downed targets, however unfortunately there are also casualties,” Ihnat added.

At least three people were killed and 28 injured, including 25 hospitalized, in Kyiv after Russia targeted a metro station and residential buildings. Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said four people had been pulled from the rubble of a damaged warehouse in Shevchenkivskyi district, adding that rescue operations were ongoing.

Kharkiv was hit by a “massive attack,” Ukrainian Prime Minster Denys Shmyhal said, with more than 20 strikes reported in the region, including on a hospital. At least three people were killed and 11 injured in the strikes, according to regional military administration head Oleh Syniehubov.

At least four people were killed and 10 people were injured in the southern region of Zaporizhzhia, the regional military administration head Yurif Malashko said on Telegram. Emergency workers are still working to see if people are trapped under the rubble of collapsed buildings. Malashko said the region had been targeted by 10 missiles, including Kinzhal missiles, of which one was intercepted.

Further south, a school building was hit in Odesa, injuring seven people, including a child. Three people were killed and 22 injured – including two children and a pregnant woman – in strikes elsewhere in the region, according to Oleh Kiper, head of Odesa region military administration. At least 18 people were hospitalized.

And in the central city of Dnipro, at least five were killed and more than 20 injured, officials said.

Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry said Russia had targeted “Ukrainian women, children, the elderly, and civilians” in the strikes.

“The crimes that Russia has committed in Ukraine today are its revenge for its inability to turn the tide of the battle in the fight against the Ukrainian defense forces,” it said in a statement.

Without referring directly to Friday’s attacks, the Russian Defense Ministry said its army had “carried out 50 group strikes and one mass strike with high-precision weapons and unmanned aerial vehicles” in the period from December 23 to 29, claiming it had only struck military targets.

The massive overnight assault comes just days after Ukraine struck a Russian Navy landing ship in Crimea on Tuesday, causing severe damage to the vessel in another major blow to Moscow’s Black Sea fleet.

But the onslaught also came shortly after Ukraine received the last package of military aid from the United States until Congress approves the Biden administration’s funding request.

Nearly two years since Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky is facing a largely-stalled counteroffensive while Western aid has begun to dry up.

The head of Ukraine’s Presidential Office, Andriy Yermak, called for support as his country battles Russian airstrikes.

“A massive terrorist attack, rockets are flying at our cities again, and civilians are being targeted,” Yermak said in a Telegram post on Friday.

“Ukraine needs support. We will be even stronger, we are doing everything to strengthen our air shield. But the world needs to see that we need more support and strength to stop this terror.”

Prime Minister Shmyhal said the attacks “targeted social and critical infrastructure,” but praised the work of Ukraine’s air force.

“Ukrainian air defense forces have once again demonstrated a high level of professionalism. Most of the air targets were shot down. We thank the soldiers for saving lives.”

The US ambassador to Ukraine, Bridget Brink, shared a screenshot on X, formerly Twitter, of the numerous air raid warnings sent to Ukrainian phones overnight.

“This is what Ukrainians see on their phones this morning,” she said. “As a result, millions of men, women, and children are in bomb shelters as Russia fires missiles across the country. Ukraine needs funding now to continue to fight for freedom from such horror in 2024.”

Bombers in the air

The Ukrainian Air Force said it recorded “the departure of 9 Tu-95MS strategic bombers from the ‘Olenya’ airfield in the Murmansk region of Russia.”

The Tu-95 bomber is a mainstay of Russia’s aerial attacks on Ukraine, able to launch cruise missiles against its neighbor out of the range of most air-defense systems.

In Kyiv, officials warned residents to take shelter as a “UAV threat” was detected in the area, a reference to drones.

Trains were halted as a building was damaged at Lukianivska subway station in central Kyiv, which is also operating as a shelter, Klitschko said.

Many were wounded and a search for victims is underway after a warehouse caught fire in the Podilskyi district of the capital region, the head of Kyiv’s military administration, Serhiy Popko, said in a Telegram post.

In the northeastern city of Sumy, numerous explosions were heard on Thursday evening local time following Russian shelling “of the border territories and settlements,” the administration in the area reported.

A residential building was hit and caught fire, Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovyi said on Telegram Friday.

In Lviv, which borders Poland, at least 15 people were injured, with damage reported in 13 residential buildings and two schools, according to the head of Lviv region military administration Maksym Kozytskyi.

Friday’s widespread strikes followed Russia’s launch of 53 attacks across eastern Ukraine on Thursday, according to a Telegram post from the Ukrainian General Staff.

Russia launched dozens of airstrikes, wounding civilians and destroying civilian infrastructure, the post said.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said he wished the “loud sound of explosions” heard across Ukraine Friday morning “could be heard all around the world.”

“In all major capitals, headquarters, and parliaments, which are currently debating further support for Ukraine. In all newsrooms, which are writing about ‘fatigue’ or Russia purportedly being ready for ‘negotiations,’” he wrote on X.

“These sounds are what Russia really has to say. Our only collective response can and must be continued, robust, and long-term military and financial assistance to Ukraine. Only greater firepower can silence Russian terror.”

SpaceX’s hulking Falcon Heavy rocket will return to the skies Thursday evening, and this time it’s launching a mysterious spacecraft for the US military that will carry out cutting-edge research.

The rocket is scheduled to lift off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 8:07 p.m. ET, carrying the military’s X-37B space plane — which is uncrewed and operates autonomously — to unprecedented altitudes. The launch will stream live on SpaceX’s website.

It is not clear, however, exactly where the space plane is going.

The X-37B’s activities in space have long been the subject of fascination and speculation in the space community as amateur enthusiasts race to track its whereabouts and share theories about its activities.

Resembling a miniature NASA space shuttle with the windows blacked out, the reusable and fully autonomous X-37B has been known to carry out research on concepts such as relaying solar energy from space for use back on Earth and studying the effects of radiation on seeds used to grow food.

And this mission — the seventh trip to space for an X-37B plane — promises to be even more intriguing than earlier flights.

A powerful ride

This launch will mark the first time the space plane has hitched a ride on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy, one of the most powerful operational rockets in the world.

Previously, the X-37B has launched on the SpaceX Falcon 9 vehicle and the Atlas V rocket built by United Launch Alliance, a joint venture between Lockheed Martin and Boeing.

The Falcon Heavy produces more thrust than both of those rockets combined.

The launch via the Falcon Heavy could indicate that X-37B is destined for more distant orbits, perhaps even to the moon or Mars, suggested Paul Graziani, CEO of COMSPOC, a company dedicated to tracking objects in space.

If it does travel much deeper into the cosmos than earlier flights, it could be far more difficult for sky-gazers on Earth to determine where the vehicle is.

If the military doesn’t want people to track the X-37B, Graziani added, the vehicle can be hidden in the glare of the sun or by various other means — including changing its position often. The X-37B has already proven on previous flights that it’s capable of making multiple maneuvers in space.

COMSPOC will attempt to search for the vehicle if the spacecraft winds up in geosynchronous orbit, which lies about 22,400 miles (36,000 kilometers) from Earth and is where most massive communications satellites operate. Geosynchronous orbit is where the company focuses its sensors for tracking satellites, said Graziani and Bob Hall, COMSPOC’s director of operations integration.

“I think it’s one of the most interesting things that’s happened in space in a long time, whatever it’s going to do,” Graziani said of the X-37B launch.

Space technology innovations

The X-37B makes it possible for the United States to carry out experiments to understand how to improve ongoing and upcoming space operations and push the boundaries of what’s possible, according to a statement by Gen. B. Chance Saltzman, chief of space operations.

Among the research on board this mission is a NASA experiment that aims to find ways to sustain astronauts on future deep-space missions. Called Seeds-2, it will “expose plant seeds to the harsh radiation environment of long-duration spaceflight” and build on research carried out on previous X-37B missions.

Learning how to grow food in the harsh, soilless environment of outer space could be crucial for astronauts on lengthy missions to the moon or beyond — places where it’s more difficult to deliver fresh supplies.

It’s unclear how long the spacecraft will spend in orbit for this stint, though historically each X-37B flight has been longer than the last.

The X-37B has already spent more than 3,700 days in space on other uncrewed missions. When it returns to Earth, it will land on a runway, much like an airplane swooping down from the skies.

Challenging China

This launch comes after more than two weeks of delays. SpaceX was prepared to lift off on December 10. The launch was pushed off twice because of weather and issues with the ground pad before SpaceX abruptly delayed the mission indefinitely to “perform additional system checkouts.”

But during the downtime, China — which the US government considers its chief competitor in a modern space race — sent its own secretive spacecraft into orbit.

Little about the spacecraft from China is known. Some in the industry speculate it is a doppelganger of the X-37B in form and function, though no official photos of the vehicle have been released.

China’s state-run Xinhua News Agency reported that the clandestine spacecraft launched aboard a Long March 2F rocket.

The agency’s post added only that during its stay in space, the vehicle will test out reusable space technology and carry out unspecified science experiments “for the peaceful use of space.”

It is not clear how long China’s space plane will spend in orbit.

A host of Russian celebrities who turned up scantily clad at an “almost naked” themed party in Moscow are facing fierce backlash at a time when the country is at war in Ukraine and the authorities are pushing an increasingly conservative agenda.

The party, hosted by blogger Anastasia Ivleeva on December 20-21 at the Mutabor club in the capital, drew criticism from Orthodox Church officials and pro-war activists, as well as pro-Kremlin lawmakers.

One of the attendees, rapper Vacio (Nikolay Vasilyev), who showed up wearing a sock to cover his genitals, has been sentenced to 15 days in jail and fined 200,000 rubles (roughly $2,200) after a Moscow court ruled the event was aimed at “propagating non-traditional sexual relationships.”

Vasilyev was found guilty of offenses including “petty hooliganism.”

“Nikolay Vasilyev (better known as rapper Vacio) participated in a party at the ‘Mutabor’ nightclub, disrupted public order, used vulgar language, and disseminated publications in Telegram channels aimed at promoting non-traditional sexual relationships in mass media on the internet,” the court ruling said.

In recent years, the Kremlin has expanded a raft of anti-LGBTQ laws, a conservative shift that has intensified following the invasion of Ukraine. Last month, Russia’s Supreme Court declared the “international LGBTQ movement” an extremist organization.

The backlash against the party in Moscow comes as Russian President Vladimir Putin is increasingly focused on traditional values as opposed to what he has portrayed as the decadence and immorality of the West as he seeks reelection in March 2024.

Apologies issued amid angry reaction

Vasilyev is among those who attended the party to issue a public apology.

Organizer Ivleeva initially said the partygoers dress choices were their own, and claimed the event was a chance to showcase photos made during her tenure as the chief editor of the Russian edition of Playboy.

On Wednesday, Ivleeva released a new video lasting over 21 minutes where she tearfully apologized, seeking forgiveness and a second chance, or public condemnation.

A lawsuit seeking compensation of 1 billion rubles ($11 million) for moral damages was filed on Tuesday against Ivleeva for organizing the party, state news agency RIA Novosti reported.

One of the other attendees, pop star Anna Asti, had a New Year’s event at another club in Moscow cancelled, the venue said on its website.

“Dear friends, due to reasons beyond our control, the performance of Anna Asti has been rescheduled to a new date, which we will announce soon,” the message said.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov declined to comment on Wednesday, stating: “Regarding this party, I ask for your mercy: let’s stay the only ones in the country not discussing this topic.”

An outspoken pro-war activist and Head of the Safe Internet League, Ekaterina Mizulina, thanked Russian police on Wednesday for their response, and shared Telegram screenshots of messages allegedly from concerned and outraged citizens.

“How do I explain to my nephew, who, while participating in a special operation, lost both legs and became disabled, what he fought for, and why he ended up disabled, for Ivleeva’s underwear?” one of the messages read, referring to the official Russian euphemism for its invasion of Ukraine.

“To host such events at a time when our young people are perishing in the military operations and many children are losing their fathers is cynical,” said Mizulina in her own post. “Our fighters on the front lines are certainly not fighting for this.”

Meanwhile, Vitaly Borodin, head of the Federal Project for Security and Anti-Corruption, expressed outrage, calling the event “sodomy, obscurantism, and LGBT propaganda,” urging the Minister of Internal Affairs to send police to the Mutabor nightclub.

A controversial ban on XL Bully dogs is set to come into force in England and Wales on Sunday, following a September announcement by the UK government amid a rise in fatal attacks involving the breed in the country.

The breed was added in September to the list of dogs banned in England and Wales under the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991.

According to the UK government’s website, starting December 31 it will be against the law to sell, abandon or let stray, give away and breed from an XL Bully dog, as well as to have an XL Bully in public without a lead and muzzle.

Under the new law, owners will have until February 1 to register them, as it will be a criminal offense to own a dog of that breed in England and Wales without a certificate of exemption.

The ruling does not apply to Scotland and Northern Ireland, with local media in the two constituent countries reporting an increase of rescues of the breed from England and Wales as a result.

According to guidelines published by the UK Government this month, the XL Bully breed type is a variant of the wider American Bully breed type, which was “developed through the crossing of various bull breeds, including the American Pit Bull Terrier.”

“The XL Bully breed type is typically larger (both in terms of height and body shape) and more muscular than other Bully breed variant types such as the ‘Micro’, ‘Pocket’, ‘Standard’ and ‘Classic’,” the UK government’s guidance read.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak pledged to bring in a ban after a man died after being savaged by two XL Bully dogs in September. In a TV interview, Sunak called the breed “a danger to communities,” adding, “it is right that we take urgent action to stop these attacks to protect the public.”

Many owners and animal welfare advocates have defended the breed, stressing the importance of good training, while critics say they have been specifically bred to be highly aggressive and even responsible ownership is not enough to prevent from attacks on occasions.

A politician from the party of Russian President Vladimir Putin has been found dead in a courtyard outside his home, local media reported Thursday, adding to the growing list of Russian elites who have died under unclear circumstances in recent months.

Vladimir Egorov, a Tobolsk City Duma Deputy from the ruling United Russia party, was reportedly 46 at the time of his death, which was reported by Russian newspaper Kommersant, citing the press service of the Investigative Committee for the Tyumen Region in Russia.

There were no “external signs of criminal death” on Egorov’s body, investigators told Kommersant. The committee “could not confirm the information about the circumstances of the deputy’s death” to Kommersant, it said, as they are “still conducting an autopsy.”

Russian state media TASS meanwhile reported on Thursday that Egorov “was found dead in Tobolsk,” also citing the regional committee. And unofficial Telegram channel Baza – which has links to Russian security services – said Egorov’s body “was discovered in the courtyard of his house on Kedrovaya Street” on Wednesday.

Kommersant and TASS reported that investigators are still establishing the causes of Egorov’s death, while the Tobolsk City Duma published an obituary on its social media page Thursday saying that Egorov died “as a result of an accident.”

The Duma praised Egorov – its deputy chairman before his death – for providing “comprehensive support to the participants of the Special Military Operation and the families of military personnel” fighting in Ukraine and for taking “an active part in the social and political life of the city.”

He joins a list of prominent Russians who have died by suicide or in unexplained accidents in recent months and years, including several businessmen with ties to Russia’s two largest energy companies.

Among that group was Ravil Maganov, the chairman of Lukoil, Russia’s second biggest oil and gas company, which had previously taken the unusual public stance of speaking out against Russia’s war in Ukraine. Maganov died after falling out of the window of a hospital in Moscow, according to Russian state news agency TASS.

Russian sausage magnate-turned-lawmaker Pavel Antov, another member of the United Russia party who topped Forbes ranking of the 100 richest civil servants in Russia in 2018, died in India last December after falling from the third floor of his hotel, according to the Indian police.

Months before his death he had reaffirmed his support for Putin after denying he posted an anti-war message on WhatsApp, blaming an “unfortunate misunderstanding and a technical error.”

In May, Russian Deputy Minister of Science and Higher Education Pyotr Kucherenko died after falling ill on a plane with a Russian delegation returning from a business trip to Cuba. A journalist who said he had spoken with Kucherenko in the months prior to his death said that Kucherenko had felt like a hostage of the Russian government and feared for his own safety.

Thousands of years ago, Earth’s magnetic field underwent a significant power surge over a part of the planet that included the ancient kingdom of Mesopotamia. People at the time probably never even noticed the fluctuation, but signs of the anomaly, including previously unknown details, were preserved in the mud bricks that they baked, new research has found.

When scientists recently examined bricks dating from the third to the first millennia BC in Mesopotamia — which encompassed present-day Iraq and parts of what is now Syria, Iran and Turkey — they detected magnetic signatures in those from the first millennium, indicating that the bricks were fired at a time when Earth’s magnetic field was unusually strong. Stamps on the bricks naming Mesopotamian kings enabled researchers to confirm the time range for the magnetic spike.

Their findings corresponded with a known magnetic surge called the “Levantine Iron Age geomagnetic Anomaly,” which took place between 1050 and 550 BC. It had previously been documented in artifacts from the Azores, Bulgaria and China using archaeomagnetic analysis — examining grains in pottery and ceramic archaeological objects for clues about Earth’s magnetic activity, scientists reported December 18 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“It is really exciting that ancient artifacts from Mesopotamia help to explain and record key events in Earth history such as fluctuations in the magnetic field,” said study coauthor Mark Altaweel, a professor of Near East archaeology and archaeological data science at the University College London’s Institute of Archaeology.

‘Human-made rocks’

When an ancient artifact contains organic matter, such as bone or wood, scientists can learn how old it is through radiocarbon dating, which compares ratios of decay preserved in carbon isotopes. But for inorganic artifacts — pottery or ceramic objects — archaeomagnetic analysis is necessary to reveal their age, said lead study author Matthew Howland, an assistant professor in the department of anthropology at Wichita State University in Kansas.

“Archaeomagnetic dating can be applied to any kind of magnetically sensitive materials that have been heated up,” Howland said. And its usefulness extends beyond archaeology.

“Geologists often use analysis of rocks to study Earth’s magnetic fields, but in more recent times when there’s not the possibility of studying very recent rocks because they haven’t had the time to form yet, we need to use archaeological artifacts,” he said. “We can think of mud bricks or pottery as human-made rocks to study Earth’s magnetic fields.”

Before this new study, there was little precise archaeomagnetic evidence from Mesopotamian artifacts dating to this time.

“The lack of data there really restricted our ability to understand the conditions of Earth’s magnetic field in that region,” Howland said. It also meant that archaeologists couldn’t accurately calculate the ages of many sites in Mesopotamia, “an incredibly important region in world archaeology.”

Magnetic attraction

Earth is surrounded by a magnetosphere — an invisible bubble of magnetism generated by the powerful churning of molten metals at Earth’s core. It prevents our atmosphere from being stripped away by solar winds blasting it from the sun. While the magnetosphere has been a constant presence for billions of years, its strength waxes and wanes over time. (Human health is not directly affected by magnetic field fluctuations, according to the US Geological Survey.)

Clay artifacts that were baked at high temperatures retain a “fingerprint” of Earth’s magnetism at the time in minerals such as iron oxide affected by magnetism. Retrieving that fingerprint involves a series of magnetic experiments that repeatedly heat and cool the object, exposing it to magnetic fields and then removing them. This process creates a series of new fingerprints, which are compared with the object’s original magnetic intensity.

Scientists can then match the object to a specific period of activity in Earth’s magnetic field.

“Overall, this is exciting work because it is helping us understand what Earth’s magnetic field is doing through time and will also help determine the age of artifacts that otherwise would be impossible,” said Cauê S. Borlina, a postdoctoral fellow in the department of Earth and planetary sciences at Johns Hopkins University. Borlina, who was not involved in the study, conducts research on ancient and modern magnetic fields, and their impact on planet formation and habitability.

The new analysis not only filled an important data gap—it also revealed new clues about that period’s magnetic anomaly.

Of the 32 stones that the researchers sampled, five bore stamps linking them to the reign of Nebuchadnezzar II, between 604 and 562 BC. Measurements of magnetism in the stones showed that the magnetic field strengthened quickly and intensely when the bricks were made. The stamps on the bricks therefore created a snapshot of a magnetic power surge that spanned just a few decades.

“The next steps are to continue this work, apply it to more mud bricks from Mesopotamia and further improve the curve that we can produce of the intensity of Earth’s magnetic field over time,” Howland said.

“But perhaps even more exciting is that archaeologists working at sites in Iraq and Syria can look at our data and apply the same techniques to undated artifacts,” he added. “This can help resolve a lot of the chronological debates that occur in the region, about the chronology of kings.”

Mindy Weisberger is a science writer and media producer whose work has appeared in Live Science, Scientific American and How It Works magazine.