Marina Ovsyannikova, a Russian journalist who staged a daring protest against the Ukraine war live on state-run television, has been sentenced to eight and a half years in prison in absentia by a Russian court.

Ovsyannikova was found guilty of “public dissemination of knowingly false information about the use of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation,” according to a statement posted by the press service of Moscow’s district court on Telegram Wednesday.

“This is just fake justice because you know, in Russia, we don’t have independent courts, Putin destroyed all independent courts.”

Ovsyannikova said relatives in Russia have turned against her, even testifying against her. “They gave evidence against me in the court, and I was shocked when I read about it.

“They live in another information reality. If you come to Russia, you start thinking in another way. My Russian relatives are thinking that Russia is surrounded by enemies. They believe Putin and they are thinking I’m the traitor.”

She continued that she was “very worried” about the future of Russia.

“If I return to Russia I will be immediately in jail. I’m very worried about the future of my country and I want to fight for a better future.”

Ovsyannikova escaped house arrest with her daughter last year and is now in Paris, according to her assistant.

The 44-year-old journalist shot to international fame last year when, as an editor at Russia’s state-controlled Channel One television station, she stood behind an anchor and held up a sign that read “No War” during a live broadcast.

Five climate protesters from the activist group Just Stop Oil disrupted a performance of the musical “Les Misérables” at the Sondheim Theatre in London’s West End on Wednesday night.

The demonstrators entered the stage during the performance of the song “Do You Hear The People Sing?” carrying orange banners that read “Just Stop Oil” and “The Show Can’t Go On.”

London’s Metropolitan Police posted on social media that local officers were quickly on the scene and arrested five people.

Just Stop Oil said the protesters locked themselves to the set using flexible bicycle locks at around 8:50 p.m. local time, which theater technicians were unable to remove. The performance was halted, and the theater was evacuated by 9:10 p.m.

In a video Just Stop Oil posted to X, formerly known as Twitter, the audience can be heard booing at the protesters and telling them to get off the stage.

“Like the citizens of Paris in 1832, you have locked your doors, while the young face slaughter on the streets. We will inherit a scorched earth, unfit to live in and our politicians will be long gone,” Just Stop Oil said. “We cannot let this stand. The show cannot go on.”

The activist group has also disrupted several major sporting events in England this year, including The Open Championship, Wimbledon, The Ashes and the World Snooker Championship.

More than 100 people are missing in India’s northeast after heavy rain caused a glacial lake to burst, leading to flash floods which ripped through the Himalayan state of Sikkim Wednesday, killing at least 14 and washing away roads and bridges, according to the state government.

A “sudden cloudburst” over Lhonak Lake, in the northern part of the state, sent fast-moving torrents of water surging down the Teesta River in Sikkim’s Lachen valley, raising water levels 15-20 feet higher than normal, the Indian Army said in a statement. A cloudburst is a very sudden and destructive rainstorm.

Chungthang Dam, also known as the Teesta 3 dam and part of a major hydropower project in the state, was “washed away,” according to a statement issued by the National Disaster Management Authority on Wednesday night.

Drinking water supplies and sewage treatment plants have been “totally damaged” across affected districts, according to the state government.

Video from the north of the state shows a muddy deluge rapidly overflowing the river, and flooded houses caked in dirt and debris, while images show search teams using excavators to uncover army vehicles buried deep in the mud.

Rescue and restorations operations are underway with both state and national disaster personnel involved, the government said.

Known as the rooftop of the world, the ecologically-sensitive Himalayan region is prone to flash floods and landslides, and flooding is not unusual in Sikkim.

But scientists are clear that extreme weather is becoming more frequent and more intense as the human-caused climate crisis accelerates.

As search efforts continued Wednesday, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) released dramatic images showing the volume of water which had been released from Lhonak Lake following the cloudburst.

Lhonak Lake is a large glacial bullet-shaped water body that sits at the foot of a melting glacier.

An analysis of the images shows more than 60% of the water held in the lake drained out after the extreme rainstorm triggered a glacial lake outburst. This phenomenon happens when a glacial lake rises too high or the surrounding land or ice gives way and the lake bursts, sending water and debris rushing down mountains.

One satellite image shows the lake holding about 167.4 hectares of water on September 28, while another dated October 4 shows the lake reduced by more than half – holding approximately 60.3 hectares of water in it.

“It is observed that lake is burst and about 105 hectares area has been drained out … which might have created a flash flood downstream (in the Teesta River),” ISRO said in text accompanying the images.

Scientists have long studied Lhonak Lake, identifying it as one of the fastest swelling glacial lakes in the region with a high risk for a potential glacial outburst, according to multiple studies.

In recent years, the state’s Disaster Management Authority led several expeditions to the site, concluding that a glacial lake outburst would “cause huge devastation downstream” and that “loss of life and property” were likely. Pipelines were installed at the lake to siphon off the water as a short-term solution.

And last May, the state government held a consultation workshop on such a risk, with the director of Sikkim’s Department of Science and Technology highlighting the “urgent need for an early warning system for these glacial lakes in Sikkim.”

Search efforts hampered by heavy rain

The Sikkim city of Pakyong was the worst affected with seven people killed in the floods and 59 people missing, the Sikkim government said.

Among those unaccounted for are dozens of members of the Indian Army. A “massive” search and rescue operation to find the missing soldiers has been launched but efforts were hampered by “incessant rains” and flooding that had cut off roads and washed-out bridges, the army said.

On Wednesday evening, one soldier was rescued and is in a stable condition but 22 others remain missing, according to the army.

At least 11 bridges collapsed in the flooding, impeding rescue efforts and cutting off remote areas, the government said.

In the state capital and largest city Gangtok, three deaths were reported and 22 people missing, it added.

More than 2,000 people have been evacuated and relief camps have been set up across the state to help more than 22,000 people affected by the flash floods.

The India Meteorological Department has forecast heavy rainfall to continue across the country’s east and northeast, including Sikkim, for the next two days.

Sikkim’s chief minister Prem Singh Tamang said in a post on X, formerly Twitter, that emergency services have been mobilized to the affected areas, and he has “visited Singtam to assess the damages and engage with the local community.” Singtam is a town affected by the flooding about 30 kilometers (18 miles) from Gangtok.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi called the situation an “unfortunate natural calamity” and offered “all possible support in addressing the challenge.”

“I pray for the safety and well-being of all those affected,” he wrote on X.

Glacial outbursts will affect millions

The Himalayan region is highly vulnerable to the climate crisis.

Himalayan glaciers feed into rivers that provide freshwater to two billion people and many communities depend on the glacial waters to irrigate their crops.

But a recent report warned the glaciers could lose up to 80% of their ice by 2100 as temperatures rise, heightening the likelihood of floods, landslides, avalanches and also drought.

As glaciers around the world melt at an alarming rate, about 15 million people who live near glacial lakes are at risk from catastrophic glacial lake outbursts, with more than half concentrated in just four countries – India, Pakistan, Peru and China – according to a study earlier this year.

The ensuing floods happen with little to no warning and previous glacial lake outbursts have killed thousands of people and destroyed property and critical infrastructure.

A 2020 study of the Teesta River basin by scientists from the Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, found a increase in rainfall and temperatures this century and that Sikkim’s many glacial lakes are expanding due to glacier and snow melt as temperatures rise.

The researchers warned that heavy rainfall events can cause the sudden expansion of lakes, risking glacial outburst floods, and it was “critical” that state disaster management departments are properly equipped to respond to such disasters and that policy makers implement climate change adaptation strategies.

In 2021, a Himalayan glacier collapsed in Uttarakhand, sending an avalanche of water, dust and rocks down a mountain gorge, and crashing though two hydroelectric projects, killing at least 38 people.

In India’s north, communities have warned for decades about unregulated commercial development, deforestation and back-to-back dam building in the fragile region, increasing the risk of disasters, flooding and landslides.

As the world rapidly urbanizes, the amount of building in flood-prone areas is soaring, according to new research, sparking concerns about people’s vulnerability to disasters as the climate crisis escalates.

Between 1985 and 2015, the number of settlements – from small villages to mega-cities – with the highest flood hazard exposure increased by 122%, according to the study published in the journal Nature on Wednesday.

Researchers analyzed global flood hazard datasets and annual settlement footprint data covering the three decades between 1985 and 2015 to understand the populations most affected by flood risk.

They found over this period, as the world’s settlements grew by 85%, urbanization happened much more rapidly in high-hazard flood zones than in areas with low flood risk.

In 2015, more than 11% of built-up areas globally faced high or very high flood risk, meaning areas at risk of flooding depths of at least 50 cm (17 inches) during 1-in-100-year flooding events, according to the report.

Exposure to all types of flooding is increasing, but vulnerability to coastal flooding is increasing at the fastest pace, the report found.

The researchers concluded that flood risks are substantial across all regions of the world and all income groups, but some face higher risks than others. Exposure is highest in East Asia and the Pacific region, and lowest in North America and sub-Saharan Africa, according to the report.

Upper-middle income countries had the largest proportion of new human settlements in the highest flood risk zones, the report found. These results were driven by China, which has experienced very swift urbanization, and is home to nearly half of all new settlements built in high flood hazard areas between 1985 and 2015.

While higher income countries mostly saw relatively slow growth in flood-prone zones over the 30 year period, many – including the US, Japan and the Netherlands – already had many settlements in areas at high risk of flooding before 1985 and have had to spend large amounts to protect them, according to the report.

Why choose to build in flood zones?

There are many reasons why the amount of building on land vulnerable to flooding is shooting up, but scarcity is a major driver.

Land that is safer from floods has largely been built on already, meaning new development is disproportionately happening in floodplains and other areas that would have previously been avoided.

In Vietnam, for example, where around one-third of coastal land is built on, new developments are being forced into hazardous land, the report found.

Sometimes the economic opportunities are assumed to outweigh the risk of disaster, such as for major port cities, beachfront communities or tourist areas. Other reasons include a lack of flood data, poor urban planning or weak regulation.

Southwest Florida, at risk from increasingly severe hurricanes, has seen populations explode due to its sunny weather and relative cheapness. That growth came as the state loosened regulations around building in high-risk and low-lying areas.

The report recommended a number of actions for policymakers and planners, including investment in disaster preparedness, early warning systems and evacuation plans in areas where flood risk is already high, as well as revising land use plans and building codes in areas where the risk is growing.

Robert Nicholls, professor of climate adaptation at the University of East Anglia who was not involved in the study, said the report’s methodology was robust and its findings were “new but not surprising.”

“This is concerning as development patterns are enhancing risk without climate change – climate change will further exacerbate these risks in the future.”

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak got up to speak from a podium bearing the words “Long-Term Decisions for a Brighter Future” – the slogan for this year’s Conservative Party conference. But over the past three days on the fringes of the governing party’s annual meeting, members have been planning their own long-term future – and in some cases for one that doesn’t involve him.

This year’s gathering, in Manchester, a historic city that was formerly the industrial powerhouse of northern England, held extra significance as it is likely the last to take place before the next general election. It was a golden opportunity for Sunak to unite his party after the battering his party’s credibility took from his two immediate predecessors – the scandal-hit era of Boris Johnson and the economic tumult of Liz Truss.  

However, despite the fact Sunak – who has been in office for less than a year – has exceeded expectations by steadying the ship and restoring some calm to British politics, many members of his own party members spent this week settling old scores and resigning themselves to defeat.

Sunak is seeking a historic fifth successive term for the Conservative Party, which has been in power since 2010 – first in coalition and from 2015 alone. 

Those 13 years have been some of the most consequential in modern British politics. From Brexit to the Covid-19 pandemic, Johnson’s transgressions and Truss’s turmoil, Sunak inherited an unpopular mess of a party that, according to opinion polls, looks doomed.  

Nevertheless, Sunak and his team are optimistic that they can pull the party together before the next election, which must take place by January 2025. And their strategy for achieving this aim appears to involve shifting further to the right, with policies and rhetoric that are tailor-made for Conservative members rather than the broader public.

Curious optics

One of the clearest signs this week that Sunak feels the need to appeal to the right-wing of his base was the presence at the conference of Nigel Farage, one of Britain’s most famous Brexiteers and perma-scourge of the Conservatives.  

It was Farage, as then-leader of the Euroskeptic UK Independence Party, who drove the political narrative that eventually forced the Conservatives to hold a referendum on leaving the European Union in 2016. While the party establishment loathes Farage, Conservative members greeted him with open arms and requests for selfies after he arrived on Monday afternoon. In many ways, he was the star of the show here in Manchester. 

It’s instructive, then, to see Sunak’s strategy through that lens. 

Last week, the PM announced a controversial U-turn on green policies, including a delay on a plan to boost the number of electric cars on Britain’s roads.   He has criticized the opposition Labour Party for endorsing lower speed limits for drivers. Many of his Cabinet ministers have hinted at the prospect of leaving the European Convention on Human Rights, which they regard as hindering efforts to curb immigration to the UK, particularly by refugees. 

The health minister said transgender patients could be banned from hospital wards that corresponded to their lived gender. Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch railed against trans rights activists, repeating an attack line that Labour MPs don’t “know what a woman is.” 

And in his closing speech, Sunak scrapped an expensive, high-speed rail project in the north of England, which he claimed would save taxpayers £36 billion – which, he said, would be reinvested instead in “hundreds of new transport projects” in the North and Midlands, both rail and road.   

The optics of this were curious, as the scrapped project, known as HS2, would have provided Manchester, the conference’s host city, with faster links to London and the wider region with better rail capacity and connections.

Most of this is broadly attractive to Conservative members and it would be reasonable to assume that it would give them a reason to rally behind Sunak.  

But there was not much sign of unity this week. Quite the opposite, in fact. The Conservative Party has always been a broad church, with competing factions jostling for supremacy. But these factions appear more splintered than ever.

Walking around the conference centre, it was striking to see groups of Conservatives who in various ways represented every iteration of the party since 2010. And quite a lot of those factions sincerely dislike one another and have serious disdain for each other’s vision for the future of the party.

True Conservative talisman?

The most high-profile rebellion came from Sunak’s immediate predecessor, Truss, who spoke at a rally at the same time as Jeremy Hunt, Sunak’s finance minister, gave his conference speech on the main stage.  

Truss, along with others on the libertarian right, called for a complete rethink of the tax system and size of the state. Her speech was made almost a year to the day that her own tax-cutting plans caused markets to crash and sank the pound to its worst low ever against the dollar. 

You might assume that less than 12 months since her disastrous premiership came to an end, the public might not be that interested in Truss’s thoughts. But Conservative Party members are rather different to the general public. In stark contrast to Hunt’s speech taking place on the main stage, Truss’s rally – held in a side room of a hotel next to the main conference center – was standing-room only.

But other factions within the party believe the true Conservative talisman to be another former PM: Boris Johnson.

Superficially, the Johnsonites are on the same wing of the party as Truss and her acolytes. However, the most passionate of his supporters are the so-called “red wall” voters: People typically from the north of England from poorer backgrounds who supported Brexit and, in many cases, voted Conservative for the first time because of Johnson. (The red-wall name is derived from the color most associated with the opposition Labour Party, which historically held sway in these areas.)

Unfortunately for Sunak, many of these members didn’t have a much better view of him. While broadly they supported lots of his recent announcements – they simply don’t believe he is serious about them.  

“He’s out-of-touch. He is a liberal. He won’t do it properly,” said one of the red-wall members.   

On the opposite wing of the party, the moderates are uncomfortable with some of the rhetoric they are hearing from cabinet ministers and the prime minister on issues like migration and LGBT+ rights – especially Suella Braverman, the home secretary, whose hardline stance worries even some on the right of the Conservative Party – including within the cabinet.

‘We really can win this thing’

The most optimistic group of Conservatives currently are those within Sunak’s orbit. This group sincerely believes that, despite the polls,  Sunak stands a very decent chance of remaining prime minister after the next election. There is some merit to this view: since Sunak’s green U-turn he has seen an improvement in his poll numbers and his personal approval ratings are better than those of anyone else in his party, according to the pollster YouGov. 

The frustration for Sunak’s allies is that despite their optimism, so many of the party’s other factions have already decided that the next election is lost, and are digging into their respective trenches before the post-election blame game starts.

Adding to the sense of inevitable loss was the open and obvious debate about the future of the party beyond Sunak. Events like the one Truss attended were, in the eyes of many members, the starting gun for a battle over the party’s soul once in opposition.  

Indeed, many of the frontrunners to succeed Sunak should he lose – including members of his own cabinet – spoke at an unusually high number of cosy, “in-conversation” style events with friendly hosts, playing for the applause of party members in the audience. 

Despite all of this, Sunak could reasonably call this year’s conference a success, if you compare it to other conferences in recent years. He has improved the party’s prospects since taking office and there wasn’t the same sense of doom that lingered over last year’s meeting. 

It’s more that this is a party that feels tired, confused and is at times acting desperately with its hotchpotch of red-meat policies and populist rhetoric. It might not be fair and it might not even be accurate, but the general sense of deflation was more potent than that of optimism. 

Pakistan, home to more than 1.7 million people who have fled violence in neighboring Afghanistan, is launching a mass deportation of “illegal immigrants,” authorities said Tuesday.

In a news conference, caretaker Interior Minister Sarfraz Bugti announced a November 1 deadline for those residing in the country illegally to leave, after which “all law enforcement agencies would deport them,” he said.

As of the end of 2022, Pakistan hosted more than 1.3 million registered Afghan refugees and 427,000 people in “refugee-like situations” from Afghanistan, according to the United Nations’ refugee agency.

But their presence in Pakistan has long been controversial, with police crackdowns and threats of deportation in previous years. Hundreds of Afghans have already been deported from Pakistan this year, according to volunteer groups, citing local records.

At the news conference Tuesday, Bugti claimed that Afghan nationals carried out 14 of the 24 major terrorist attacks that have taken place in Pakistan this year.

“There are attacks on us from Afghanistan and Afghan nationals are involved in those attacks. We have evidence present for that,” he added.

Businesses and properties of “illegal aliens will be confiscated, and illegal business operators and their facilitators will be prosecuted” in the crackdown, Bugti said.

“Strict legal action will be taken against any Pakistani citizen or company providing accommodation or facilities to illegal aliens” residing in Pakistan after the deadline, he added.

The decision was made by the National Apex Committee, which met earlier on Tuesday. A task force has also been formed to “seize people with fake identity cards and illegal properties built on their fake documents,” while the country’s national database and registration body has been ordered to cancel any “fake identity cards” and confirm any cases with DNA testing, authorities said.

Pakistan is home to one of the world’s largest refugee populations – the vast majority of them from Afghanistan. Given the two countries’ shared border and deep cultural ties, their fates have always been linked – with years of conflict and humanitarian crises in Afghanistan inevitably spilling into Pakistan.

Many Afghans fled the Soviet invasion of their country in 1979, settling in Pakistan during the biggest refugee crisis in the world at the time. Another wave took place in 2021 after the Taliban retook Kabul, with thousands of Afghans crossing the Pakistan border, often with incomplete paperwork while waiting for visas to third countries, such as the United States.

“Many Afghans living in fear of persecution by the Taliban have fled to Pakistan, where they have been subjected to waves of arbitrary detentions, arrests, and the threat of deportation,” Nonprofit organization Amnesty International said in a statement Monday.

“It is deeply concerning that the situation of Afghan refugees in Pakistan is not receiving due international attention.”

Advocacy group Refugees International said it was “especially concerned” for the fate of Afghans who fled their country in 2021 due to fear of the Taliban.

“Pakistan has a long history of generously hosting their Afghan neighbors when they have been unsafe. Now is not the time to stop,” it said.

Activists on Wednesday accused Iran’s morality police of assaulting a teenage girl for not wearing a headscarf in a Tehran metro station, leading to her hospitalization with serious injuries. But Iranian authorities and the teenager’s parents said she was hospitalized due to low blood pressure.

A Norway-based group focused on Kurdish rights, Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, said that 16-year-old Armita Geravand was “assaulted” by morality police and has been in a coma since Sunday. Another opposition network, IranWire, said it had obtained information that Geravand was admitted to the hospital with “head trauma.”

“Following this confrontation, she managed to enter the metro, but collapsed later on,” Shekhi added.

The CEO of the Tehran metro however told state media that there was no physical or verbal interaction between Geravand and members of his staff. “According to our investigation, after reviewing the CCTV footages from the moment she entered the station and gets on the train, there was no verbal or physical altercation between the passengers with them or our staff. There was nothing recorded on the videos,” Tehran metro managing director Masoud Dorosti, told state media.

Some of the girls entering with Geravand appeared to not be wearing headscarves. Moments later, the video goes on to show a group of girls carrying Geravand out of the metro train, placing her on the metro platform as the metro leaves the station, the video shows.

Geravand’s mother and father told state media in an interview that their daughter seemed to hit her head after fainting from low blood pressure while she was on her way to school. The parents said there were no signs from the videos they saw that Geravand was assaulted.

“I think they said she had low blood pressure… drop in blood pressure or fallen on the floor… her head hit the edge of the metro and then (her friends) took her off (the train),” her mother Shahin Ahmadi said.

“We checked the cameras. She went there…I am not sure…one of the girls was in front and one was behind her. She got on the train and fell down… I don’t know …what happened…whether she was unconscious…she fainted…..they pulled her out and called the emergency care. She was then taken to the hospital,” said her father, Ahmad Garavand.

It is unclear if Geravand’s family were coerced into speaking to state media. In the past, UN human rights officials and rights groups have accused Iranian authorities of pressuring families of protesters killed to make statements supportive of the government narrative.

The teenager is currently being treated at a hospital in Tehran, Fars News Agency reported. IranWire is reporting that she is being treated at Fajr Air Force Hospital, in a separate statement it published on Wednesday.

Iran was besieged with protests following the case of Mahsa Amini, the 22-year-old Kurdish woman who died in custody after being arrested by Iran’s morality police last year for allegedly wearing her hijab improperly. Amini’s death sparked nationwide protests.

More than 300 people were also killed in months-long protests, including more than 40 children, the UN said in November last year. US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) in January placed the number of dead at more than 500, including 70 children. Thousands were arrested across the country, the UN said in a report in June, citing research released last year by their Human Rights Committee.

A journalist from Iranian pro-reform outlet Shargh Daily had gone to Fajr Air Force Hospital to report on Geravand’s condition when she was arrested on Tuesday, according to a post Shargh Daily on X, formerly known as Twitter. The reporter, Maryam Lotfi, has since been released, the outlet reported.

Scientists have taken their first glimpse of a sample collected from the near-Earth asteroid Bennu — and stumbled upon a good bit more than they expected.

When they opened the canister containing the sample on September 26, the researchers discovered an abundance of dark, fine-grained material on the inside of the container’s lid and base surrounding the mechanism used to collect the extraterrestrial rocks and soil. That unexpected debris could reveal key insights about the asteroid before the primary sample is analyzed.

The sample’s historic landing in the Utah desert September 24 marked the culmination of NASA’s 7-year OSIRIS-Rex mission, which traveled to Bennu some 200 million miles (320 million kilometers) from Earth, touched down on the asteroid and then flew back by Earth for the sample drop. (Total trip distance: some 3.86 billion miles.)

The mission team whisked away the canister the day after its arrival to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, which has a clean room specially built for careful analysis of the cosmic sample.

What the Bennu sample could reveal

Asteroids are remnants from the formation of the solar system, offering insights into what those chaotic, early days were like as the planets formed and settled into place. But near-Earth asteroids also pose a threat to our planet, so understanding their composition and orbits is key to unlocking the best ways to deflect space rocks on a collision course with Earth.

When OSIRIS-REx briefly used its TAGSAM, or Touch-and-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism head, to disturb the surface of Bennu and collect a sample in October 2020, it gathered so much material that particles could be seen slowly drifting off into space before the head was stowed in the canister.

This led scientists to believe they might be able to do a quick analysis of any material they discovered upon opening the canister — and there’s plenty of it before they even reach the bulk of the sample, located within the mechanism head, which means the scientists will need to take their time to collect all of the material.

“The very best ‘problem’ to have is that there is so much material, it’s taking longer than we expected to collect it,” said Christopher Snead, deputy OSIRIS-REx curation lead, in a statement.

“There’s a lot of abundant material outside the TAGSAM head that’s interesting in its own right. It’s really spectacular to have all that material there.”

The actual asteroid sample won’t be revealed until October 11 in a live NASA broadcast. The TAGSAM head will be moved to a new specialized glovebox for careful disassembly, unveiling the sample inside.

Meanwhile, the quick-look analysis of a sample taken from outside the TAGSAM head is underway, and it could offer initial findings from the material collected from Bennu.

“We have all the microanalytical techniques that we can throw at this to really, really tear it apart, almost down to the atomic scale,” said Lindsay Keller, OSIRIS-REx sample analysis team member, in a statement.

The team will use scanning electron microscopes, X-rays and infrared instruments for a first examination of the material collected from Bennu.

Together, the instruments will provide scientists with an understanding of the sample’s chemical composition, detect any hydrated minerals or organic particles, and reveal any abundance of specific types of minerals present on the asteroid.

“You’ve got really top-notch people and instruments and facilities that are going to be hitting these samples,” Keller said.

The initial analysis will help researchers have a better idea of what to expect from the bulk sample collected from Bennu.

Scientists believe that asteroids like Bennu might have delivered necessary elements such as water to Earth early in our planet’s formation — and studying the pristine sample could answer lingering questions about the origins of our solar system.

Meanwhile, the spacecraft that delivered the sample, now named OSIRIS-APEX, is on its way to study the near-Earth asteroid Apophis, which will come close enough to Earth in 2029 to be seen by the naked eye.

The governing party called it a ceremonial passing of the baton. But the opposition lambasted it as a “passing of the scepter.”

Constitutionally barred from running for reelection, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador sought to show last month, in a very public way, that presidential candidate Claudia Sheinbaum has his blessing. So he handed his hoped-for successor an actual baton, in a ceremony outside a Mexico City restaurant not far from the National Palace – the seat of the country’s executive power.

Sheinbaum, a 61-year-old former Mexico City mayor and longtime political ally of Lopez Obrador, hit all the right notes in thanking him. Accepting the baton along with the leftist Morena party’s presidential nomination, Sheinbaum said she would assume “the full responsibility of continuing the course marked by our people, that of the transformation initiated by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.”

When Mexicans go to the polls next June, they will choose between two women for president – a first in the country’s history. Only four days before Morena nominated Sheinbaum, Mexico’s opposition coalition Broad Front chose another formidable female candidate, former senator Xochitl Gálvez from the conservative PAN party.

It’s not the first time Mexico sees women running for the presidency; before Sheinbaum and Gálvez, were six other female presidential candidates. But with the two major political sides nominating women, this is the first time that it’s practically a given that starting in December 2024, Mexico, a country previously known for machismo, will be run by a woman.

Still, some critics say the outgoing Lopez Obrador’s shadow looms over the contest.

Meet the candidates: Sheinbaum and Galvez

Gálvez’s rise in Mexican politics has been meteoric; this spring, she said she wasn’t even the favorite of the PRI, PAN and PRD, the parties that now form the Broad Front coalition. It was a public spat with Lopez Obrador himself – who regularly attacked her as a “wimp,” “puppet,” and “employee of the oligarchy” in news conferences – that ultimately rocketed her into the spotlight.

In June, Gálvez went viral when she attempted to enter the National Palace with a judicial order that granted her the right to reply to the president, after successfully suing López Obrador. “This is not a show,” she told reporters at the doors of the National Palace. “The law is the law, period.”

In some respects, she appears progressive. Gálvez has advocated in the Mexican Congress for the rights and welfare of indigenous groups and Afro-Mexicans, and in a regional forum earlier this year in Monterrey, said that oil-rich Mexico should shift to renewable energy. “We haven’t done it because we are dumbasses,” Gálvez unapologetically said.

She has also said leftist Lopez Obrador’s pension for all senior citizens should continue, and proposes what she calls a “universal social protection system” of welfare programs for a large portion of the middle and lower classes.

But when it comes to security and the fight against organized crime, Gálvez’s three-pronged plan is muscular, based on what she describes as “intelligence, heart and a firm-hand”: strengthening local and state police and giving them access to intelligence, advocating for and protecting victims, and respecting the rule of law.

Macario Schettino, a political analyst and Social Science professor at ITESM, a renowned Mexican university, describes Gálvez’s political momentum as impressive, considering that only a few months ago, she wasn’t even considered a candidate with a national profile. “She barely begun to register in political terms, and she’s already had great growth. Many people in Mexico still don’t know her. She is going to grow [..] in popularity,” Schettino said, “While Claudia Sheinbaum can no longer move from where she is because she is already known by most Mexicans.”

Sheinbaum, a physicist with a doctorate in environmental engineering, would also be the first president with Jewish heritage if she wins, although she rarely speaks publicly about her personal background and has governed as a secular leftist.

She is currently ahead in most polls, and will be a formidable opponent to beat. Not only does Sheinbaum have the full support of the governing party, she has also long enjoyed the spotlight as mayor of Mexico’s most important city for the last five years until her resignation in June to run for the presidency.

On policy, Sheinbaum has vowed to continue many of Lopez Obrador’s policies and programs, including a pension for all senior citizens, scholarships for more than 12 million students and free fertilizers for small farm owners. But the high-profile ex-mayor rejects criticism of her close political alignment with the president. “Of course we’re not a copy (of the president),” she said in July.

Still, she does not shy away from touting the principles they share: “For everybody’s good, let’s put the poor first. There cannot be a rich government if the people are poor. Power is only a virtue when it’s used to serve the people,” Sheinbaum said, repeating the same campaign slogans Lopez Obrador has used for years.

Lopez Obrador promises to ‘retire completely’

Schettino believes the immensely popularly Lopez Obrador views Sheinbaum as his extension in power. He points to their party Morena’s roots in the authoritarian Institutional Revolutionary Party that governed Mexico for more than seven decades until 2000, which came to be known as “The Dinosaur,” and the Party of Democratic Revolution that branched off from it.

In 2012, Lopez Obrador created Morena as a political party. Schettino describes the party today as a “tyrannosaurus” under Lopez Obrador’s influence – representing what he says is the current leader’s desire for a successor to hew closely to his own agenda. “President López Obrador, a dinosaur who not only is a dinosaur, but also has the vocation of a tyrant. He doesn’t want to go. He wants to stay in power,” Schettino said.

“I believe that he built Claudia’s candidacy,” Schettino said.

López Obrador however has repeatedly dismissed accusations of authoritarian leanings or that he favors a candidate he will be able to control. Earlier this year, Lopez Obrador denied he had any favorites among his party’s hopefuls or that he was pushing for one candidate or another behind the scenes.

He has also said that he is going “retire completely” after his six-year term in office comes to an end. “I am retiring, I will not participate in any public event again, of course. I am not going to accept any position, I do not want to be anyone’s advisor, much less am I going to act as a chief. I am not going to have relations with politicians. I am not going to talk about politics,” the president told press in February.

Western militaries are running out of ammunition to give to Ukraine, NATO and British officials warned Tuesday, as they urged the bloc’s nations to ramp up production to “keep Ukraine in the fight against Russian invaders.”

The news of possible ammunition shortfalls comes after money to buy weapons for Ukraine was not included in a stopgap spending bill the US Congress passed at the weekend to avoid a federal government shutdown.

Fresh uncertainty over the future of US aid arose Tuesday when US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who advocated for support of Ukraine, was ousted from his leadership position by Republican colleagues.

The developments are troubling news for Ukraine as the war with neighboring Russia is in its 20th month and raises questions over whether Moscow may feel able to outlast western commitment promises.

“The bottom of the barrel is now visible,” Adm. Rob Bauer of the Netherlands, the chair of the NATO Military Committee and NATO’s most senior military official, said of the West’s ammunition stockpile Tuesday during a discussion at the Warsaw Security Forum.

“We give away weapons systems to Ukraine, which is great, and ammunition, but not from full warehouses. We started to give away from half-full or lower warehouses in Europe” and those stores are now running low, Bauer said.

James Heappey, minister of state for the armed forces of the United Kingdom, speaking at the same panel, said even though stockpiles may be thin, aid for Kyiv must continue and Western countries need to increase their capacity to make more ammo.

“We have to keep Ukraine in the fight tonight and tomorrow and the day after and the day after,” Heappey said. That means, “continuing to give, day in day out, and rebuilding our own stockpiles,” he added.

Meanwhile, analysts are warning that the US “arsenal of democracy” needs to start working overtime or Ukraine’s war effort may be in trouble.

“The United States and its allies are sending to Ukraine a wide range of munitions, but they are not being produced or delivered as quickly as needed,” Atlantic Council nonresident senior fellow Thomas Warrick wrote last week.

Warrick wrote that as Ukraine delayed the start of summer offensive to get more ammo and equipment to the front lines, Russia was able to build up defenses that have significantly blunted Ukrainian advances.

“Ukraine’s forces have proven themselves flexible and adaptive, but they need to have sufficient ammunition and weapons,” he wrote.

But events in Washington are placing supplies – and Ukraine’s standing on the battlefield – in doubt.

“An inability to ensure timely procurement and deliveries could undermine essential Ukrainian operations to retake additional territory or defend against potential future Russian offensives,” US Undersecretary of Defense Michael McCord wrote in a letter to congressional leadership on Friday as the spending bill that ultimately eliminated aid for Ukraine was being negotiated.

“Without additional funding now, we would have to delay or curtail assistance to meet Ukraine’s urgent requirements, including for air defense and ammunition that are critical and urgent now as Russia prepares to conduct a winter offensive and continues its bombardment of Ukrainian cities,” McCord wrote.

US military aid to Ukraine has amounted to a staggering $46.6 billion from the war’s start through July 31, according to the Council on Foreign Relations. NATO allies have contributed billions more.

But military leaders acknowledge ammo especially is being used at a staggering rate on the Ukraine battlefields.

The Pentagon said in July it had provided Ukraine with more than 2 million artillery rounds to date.

“This is an artillery intensive fight,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said at the time. “You know, we’ve seen large amounts of artillery be employed on both sides of the fence. And so that puts a strain on the international supply of munitions, artillery munitions.”

At the time, Washington’s supplies of NATO standard 155mm artillery rounds were so low that it was decided to supply Ukraine with controversial cluster munitions.