Author: Liam Porter

At the heart of the new Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile is the world’s largest digital camera. About the size of a small car, it will create an unparalleled map of the night sky.The observatory’s first public images of the sky are expected to be released on June 23. Here’s how its camera works.When Times reporters visited the observatory on top of an 8,800-foot-high mountain in May, the telescope was undergoing calibration to measure minute differences in the sensitivity of the camera’s pixels. The camera is expected to have a life of more than 10 years.A single Rubin image…

The day after I graduated from college, my sister and I flew to New York City, meticulously plotting out our visit hour-by-hour in a spiral notebook. But the moment we got to the city, we ditched the plan and beelined for Times Square. Hours later, she was live on MTV’s TRL (yes, this was 1999!) announcing the No. 1 song—and we instantly believed this was the place where dreams come true.  A few years later, my office was smack dab in the middle of Times Square. While my co-workers complained about the constant hoards of tourists, I secretly loved stepping…

The Labour MP Vicky Foxcroft has resigned as a government whip in protest at the government’s welfare plans, saying she will not be able to vote for the cuts to disability payments.The government is braced for a major rebellion on the welfare bill, which includes significant changes to personal independence payments for disabled people.Foxcroft, the MP for Lewisham North who was shadow disability minister before the election, said she was unable to do her job as a whip because she disagreed with the changes and did not believe that cuts were part of the solution to rising inactivity.In a letter…

The UK government has pledged more money for “crumbling” hospitals, schools and courts as part of a ten year infrastructure strategy. It will spend £9bn a year over the next decade to fix and replace buildings, but is yet to publish a list identifying major projects such as new roads and rail lines.The strategy is a cornerstone of the government’s plans to put some life into Britain’s sluggish economic growth, and promises £725bn of funding over a decade.The announcements on Thursday focussed on what the Chief Secretary to the Treasury Darren Jones called a “soaring maintenance backlog” in health, education…

One of SpaceX’s Starship rockets exploded on a test stand in Texas late on Wednesday night, as the company prepared for the tenth test flight of the heavy-lift rocket system. SpaceX said “all personnel are safe and accounted for” in a post on X, and claimed there are “no hazards to residents in surrounding communities.” The company said in a later update on Thursday that an initial analysis suggests the explosion was caused by a failure of of a “pressurized tank known as a COPV, or composite overwrapped pressure vessel” in the Starship’s nosecone. The enormous explosion caused damage to…

Siphai Thammavong has dedicated his life to preserving the traditions of storytelling in Laos and there’s a growing sense of urgency in his quest. As we discover in Claudia Bellasi and Markus Steiner Ender’s richly evocative documentary The Guardian of Stories, the keepers of the country’s folktales are dying out and Thammavong’s fear is that these ancient tales will be lost to time, the generations now and to come who seem more transfixed by their smartphones than Laos’ rich oral histories.So, the Italian filmmakers travel with Thammavong deep into the country to meet these keepers of history, and the audience…

The trend forecasters are predicting a prep revival. The all-American look, born of mid-century country clubs and popularized by 1980s movies, seems to be in the air again. A 17-year-old I know sets out each weekend to shop for vintage polo shirts, and Luca Guadagnino is filming a new version of the Bret Easton Ellis novel, American Psycho. That about synthesizes it.If prep does make a comeback on the runways in the coming weeks, it wouldn’t surprise Thom Browne. “I’m always in that world because I love the timelessness of it and the ease,” he says. “I like the idea…

The diagnosis around which Heston: My Life With Bipolar revolves is so recent that, when we meet him, the doctors are still adjusting his medication. It was only 18 months ago that police, firefighters and a man with a syringe arrived at his front door to have him sectioned at his wife’s request. “She had to do it,” he says. “Or I wouldn’t be here.” He woke up in what he would learn was a psychiatric hospital and stayed there for two months before returning home with his new medications as one of the 1.3 million people in the UK living with…

Katie Boulter had to dig deep to beat Sonay Kartal in an all-British tie and keep her bid for a third straight Nottingham Open title on track.Boulter trailed in the deciding set and almost went a double break down before regrouping to win 6-4 1-6 7-5 and reach the quarter-finals.Eighth seed Boulter also called for the doctor during the match after struggling with the hot weather.”I am definitely proper British because I can’t handle the heat at all,” the 28-year-old said.”I’m just glad I got over the line.”Boulter is on a 12-match winning streak in Nottingham, having won her first…

Tim DoddClimate and science reporterEPABanning or charging for plastic bags is helping stop them ending up on US shorelines, a study of the country’s litter suggests.Data from thousands of cleanups showed that areas which tried to reduce bag use saw them fall by at least 25% as a percentage of total litter collected, compared to areas that didn’t try.Bans or charging for bags worked better at state rather than town level, and had a bigger impact in places that had a bigger litter problem to begin with.Despite the good news, the researchers cautioned that, overall, more plastic bags are being…