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The Independent | Latest news and features from US, UK and worldwideA heatwave is expected to hit much of the US this week from the Midwest to the Northeast. Pictured: a boy cools off at a fountain during hot weather in Chicago on June 16, 2024
The kitchen worker, an employee of the food service company Aramark, was later named as Aureon Shavea Grace
Police investigate the scene of a shooting at the Brooklands Plaza Splash Pad on June 15 in Rochester Hills, Michigan. Police have now identified the suspect as a 42-year-old man.
Authorities evacuated at least 1,200 people on Saturday as a blaze near Los Angeles consumed more than 11,000 acres.
Virgin Galactic completes final VSS Unity commercial spaceflight
Virgin Galactic flew four tourists to the edge of space and back aboard its spaceplane, marking the second flight this year, the Richard Branson -founded company said on Saturday.
The Galactic 07 mission carried Turkish, U.S. and Italian passengers to an altitude of about 55 miles (88.51 km) on a flight lasting slightly more than an hour.
The space tourism company said that mission took off from and returned to Spaceport America in New Mexico on Saturday.
It marked Virgin's VSS Unity spaceplane's final commercial flight as the company is now producing its fourth-generation spaceships expected to enter commercial service in 2026, the company said in a statement.
Human missions to Mars could be at risk after new research revealed that long-duration space travel can impact the structure of astronauts' kidneys.
Samples from more than 40 space missions involving humans and mice revealed that kidneys are remodelled by the conditions in space, with certain parts showing signs of shrinkage after less than a month in space.
The findings could jeopardise plans by SpaceX and Nasa to send crewed missions to Mars in the coming decades, with SpaceX boss Elon Musk recently claiming that it could be possible within the next "10 to 20 years".
Scientists at University College London (UCL), who carried out the study, said that microgravity and galactic radiation from space flight caused serious health risks to emerge the longer a person is exposed to it.
Future missions to Mars were not ruled out, though the scientists said that measures to protect the kidneys would need to be developed to avoid serious harm to astronauts. Methods of recovery could also be introduced onboard spacecraft, such as dialysis machines.
"We know what has happened to astronauts on the relatively short space missions conducted so far, in terms of an increase in health issues such as kidney stones," said Dr Keith Siew, first author of the study from the London Tubular Centre, based at the UCL Department of Renal Medicine.
"We know that the kidneys are late to show signs of radiation damage; by the time this becomes apparent it's probably too late to prevent failure, which would be catastrophic for the mission's chances of success."
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