The UK and Spain have struck a “historic” deal over Gibraltar’s future, ending the long-running dispute over the territory after Brexit and easing the movement of people and goods across the border with Spain. The Foreign Office said the agreement “resolves the last major unresolved issue from Brexit”, while the Spanish foreign minister said it … Read more
Ireland’s planning body, An Bord Pleanála, will determine later this year the fate of an ambitious proposal to build the country’s first underground railway. Residents of the Irish capital won’t be holding their breath, however. Since it was first proposed 25 years ago, MetroLink has been cancelled, revived and rebranded. The latest version of the … Read more
Nine years ago, Gibraltar voted by 96% to 4% to remain in the European Union. However, the UK’s simultaneous 52% to 48% leave vote meant Gibraltarians were denied their own will. As the only British overseas territory sharing a land frontier with the EU’s border-free Schengen travel area, and as the focus of a territorial … Read more
Earlier this month, Geert Wilders decided he had had enough. “No signature for our asylum plans. No changes to the coalition agreement. The PVV is leaving the coalition,” he posted on X. After 11 months, he was withdrawing support for the Dutch prime minister Dick Schoof’s rightwing cabinet, forcing the Netherlands back to the polls. … Read more
In 2006, a small, little-known company named Space Exploration Technologies Corporation — SpaceX, for short — won a NASA contract to ferry cargo and supplies to the International Space Station. At that moment, SpaceX had not yet launched anything to orbit and would not succeed until two years later with its tiny Falcon 1 rocket. … Read more
Night sky observers are being treated this week to a view of a red-tinted full moon — known in June as a “strawberry moon” — a phenomenon that occurs when the moon sits low on the Southern Horizon. This summer, the reddish color is particularly pronounced because the moon is sitting at the lowest position … Read more
The northern lights are fleeting and fantastical. But Elise Wright Knutsen, an atmospheric physicist at the University of Oslo, has gotten used to them. “I’m Norwegian, so the aurora is a big thing here,” she said. “You kind of grow up with it happening over your head.” But catching her first glimpse of the aurora … Read more
Ed Smylie, the NASA official who led a team of engineers that cobbled together an apparatus made of cardboard, plastic bags and duct tape that saved the Apollo 13 crew in 1970 after an explosion crippled the spacecraft as it sped toward the moon, died on April 21 in Crossville, Tenn. He was 95. His … Read more
President Trump’s recent trip to the Persian Gulf was notable for the ways that American foreign policy overlapped with his family’s business interests. But another powerful White House figure also cut lucrative deals in the region last week: Elon Musk. Tagging along on Mr. Trump’s state visit to Saudi Arabia last week, Mr. Musk, the … Read more
New Yorkers, get ready for the latest solar spectacle. Each year at the end of May, and again in mid-July, residents and tourists flood the streets of Manhattan for a spectacular view of the sun setting in the west, flanked by the city’s famous streetscapes. Nicknamed Manhattanhenge, the event attracts more people each year, some … Read more