BIG Wrap

(Al Jazeera Media Network) NASA has successfully launched the Artemis II mission, marking the first crewed mission to the moon’s vicinity since the Apollo program ended in 1972. The 322-foot Space Launch System (SLS) rocket lifted off at 6:35 pm ET (22:35 GMT) on Wednesday from Cape Canaveral, Florida, sending the Orion crew capsule on a 10-day journey. While Artemis II will not land on the moon, it will fly a “free-return” trajectory that swings around it to prove the...

(BBC News) A mass robotaxi outage in the Chinese city of Wuhan caused at least 100 self-driving cars to stop mid-traffic, sparking renewed debate around the safety of driverless vehicles. Local police said initial findings suggested a "system malfunction" caused multiple vehicles to stop in the middle of the road on Tuesday. Videos on social media have documented the outage, with one appearing to show it resulting in a highway collision, although police said no injuries had been reported...

(Al Jazeera Media Network) Burundi’s army says that at least 13 civilians have been killed and 57 others were wounded when ammunition exploded due to an electrical short circuit at a military base in the economic capital Bujumbura. “Houses were damaged in various neighbourhoods as well as private vehicles. Military equipment and facilities burned and were destroyed,” army spokesperson General Gaspard Baratuza said in a statement on Wednesday. The army did not specify if any soldiers...

(BBC News) The US Supreme Court has ruled against a law in Colorado that bans so-called conversion therapy for lesbian, gay and transgender people. It sided 8-1 with a therapist from Colorado Springs who argued that the state's restrictions violated her free speech rights guaranteed under the US Constitution's First Amendment. Conversion therapy aims to encourage lesbian, gay and transgender people to change their sexual orientation or gender identity. The justices ruled that lower courts had "erred...

(Al Jazeera Media Network) Qatar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Majed al-Ansari has said Iran had crossed “many red lines” during its ongoing attacks on neighbouring countries and stressed the need for de-escalation as the US-Israel war with Iran continues with no clear end in sight. During a news conference on Tuesday, al-Ansari said Iranian attacks on Qatar were having a “catastrophic effect on the relationship between the two countries.” The spokesperson called on all parties to the war to...

(BBC News) A Russian tanker carrying oil to Cuba has entered the waters off the Communist-run island, Russian news agencies report. The oil shipment – the first to reach Cuba since January – comes hours after US President Donald Trump said that he had no problem with countries, including Russia, sending supplies to the island. Trump's remark appeared to signal a loosening of a de facto oil blockade his administration had imposed on Cuba since January. Cuba...

(Al Jazeera Media Network) The Pentagon is preparing for weeks of limited ground operations in Iran, potentially including raids on Kharg Island and coastal sites near the Strait of Hormuz, according to United States officials quoted by The Washington Post newspaper. The plans, which fall short of a full invasion, could involve raids by special operations and conventional infantry troops, the Post reported on Saturday, exposing US personnel to Iranian drones and missiles, ground fire, and improvised...

(BBC News) FBI Director Kash Patel's personal email account has been hacked by an Iran-linked group, the agency has confirmed. A group, known as the Handala Hack Team, shared Patel's purported resume and photos of him on its website on Friday along with a statement that says: "This is just our beginning." The FBI said it was aware of "malicious actors" targeting Patel's email information. "The information in question is historical in nature and involves no...

(Al Jazeera Media Network) Israel has struck a uranium processing facility in the central Iranian city of Yazd, the Israeli military confirmed, in an escalatory move that comes as regional diplomats have been attempting to broker an agreement to halt the joint US-Israeli war on Iran. The Israeli Air Force said it hit a plant used to extract raw materials essential to the uranium enrichment process, describing it as a “unique facility” in Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. Iran’s Atomic...

(BBC News) A court in Russia has banned the documentary Mr Nobody Against Putin from three streaming platforms on the grounds that it "propagates extremism and terrorism". The BBC documentary, which won an Oscar earlier this month, documents the ramping up of war propaganda in a Russian school following Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. It is based on footage collected by Pavel Talankin, a school events coordinator who later fled Russia. Prosecutors argued that the documentary expressed a...