Top News Stories –
UK astronaut Tim Peake returns to Earth –
UK astronaut Tim Peake is back on Earth after a historic six-month stay on the International Space Station. A Soyuz capsule carrying Major Peake and two other crew members touched down in Kazakhstan at 10:15 BST. He called the journey back “the best ride I’ve been on ever”, adding: “The smells of Earth are just so strong.” Maj Peake is the first person to fly to space under the UK banner since Helen Sharman in 1991 and made the first spacewalk by a UK astronaut. During the 186-day mission, Maj Peake also remotely steered a robot on Earth and ran the London Marathon. Just before 15:00 BST, Maj Peake landed by helicopter on the runway at Karagandy airport. [BBC]
Timothy Peake
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List of the Day –
Ten longest human space flights [Wikipedia]
Other News Stories –
- Armed conflicts and attacks
- Terrorism in the European Union
- Spillover of the Syrian Civil War
- The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reports at least eight people, including four children, are shot and killed, and another eight wounded by Turkish border guards. The group was trying to cross from northwestern Syria into Turkey’s Hatay Province. (The Times of Israel) (AP)
- Disasters and accidents
- A week of heavy rains and flooding in south China results in at least 25 deaths, six people missing and 33,000 people displaced. (ABC News)
- Six people are killed and 10 injured when a van crashes in the U.S. state of Virginia. (Reuters)
- Law and crime
- Death of Jo Cox
- Thomas Mair from the town of Birstall, West Yorkshire, is charged with the murder of British MP Jo Cox. (West Yorkshire Police), (BBC)
- A 73-year-old gunman shoots dead a police officer, and seriously wounds another before shooting himself dead in Vihti, Finland. Finnish broadcaster Yle reports it is the first time a police officer in Finland has been killed in the line of duty since 2007. (AP via Daily Mail)
- Mohamed Morsi, former President of Egypt, is sentenced to life imprisonment and another 15 years for his role in allegedly leaking government secrets to Qatar. Six people, including two Al-Jazeeraemployees, are sentenced to death. (Daily News Egypt), (Al-Jazeera)
- At least six people have been shot dead and 12 injured as a result of 18 shootings in the American city of Chicago, Illinois. (ABC7 Chicago)
- Politics and elections
- Sudanese conflict in South Kordofan and Blue Nile
- Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir declares a four-month ceasefire in the states of Blue Nile and South Kordofan in order to give rebels of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North a chance to join the peace process and to lay down arms in order to end the conflict which has been ongoing since 2011. (Al Jazeera)
- United States presidential election, 2016, 2016 Republican National Convention
- Apple Inc. notifies the GOP that this year it will not fund or provide other support for the party’s 2016 presidential convention, citing Donald Trump’s controversial comments about women, immigrants and minorities. (Politico)
- Science and technology
- Three astronauts return from a mission to the International Space Station, Briton Tim Peake of the European Space Agency, Timothy Kopra of NASA and Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko. (BBC)
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