The US space agency Nasa has named the four astronauts who will take humanity back to the Moon, after a 50-year gap.
Christina Koch will become the first woman astronaut ever assigned to a lunar mission, while Victor Glover will be the first black astronaut on one.

They will join Reid Wiseman and Jeremy Hansen to fly a capsule around the Moon late next year or early in 2025.

The astronauts won’t land on the Moon, but their mission will pave the way for a touchdown by a subsequent crew.

The three US citizens and one Canadian were presented to the public in a ceremony in Houston, Texas.

They will now begin a period of intense training to get themselves ready.

In selecting a woman and a person of colour, Nasa is keeping its promise to bring greater diversity to its exploration efforts. All the previous crewed missions to the Moon were made by white men.

Reid Wiseman (47): A US Navy pilot who served for a time as the head of Nasa’s astronaut office. He’s flown one previous space mission, to the International Space station in 2015.

Victor Glover (46): A US Navy test pilot. He joined Nasa in 2013 and made his first spaceflight in 2020. He was the first African American to stay on the space station for an extended period of six months.

Christina Koch (44): An electrical engineer. She holds the record for longest continuous time in space by a woman, of 328 days. With Nasa astronaut Jessica Meir she participated in the first all-female spacewalk in October 2019.

Jeremy Hansen (47): Before joining the Canadian Space Agency, he was a fighter pilot with the Royal Canadian Air Force. He has yet to fly in space.

“The Artemis-2 crew represents thousands of people working tirelessly to bring us to the stars. This is their crew, this is our crew, this is humanity’s crew,” said Nasa Administrator Bill Nelson.

“Nasa astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Hammock Koch, and CSA astronaut Jeremy Hansen, each has their own story, but, together, they represent our creed: E pluribus unum – out of many, one. Together, we are ushering in a new era of exploration for a new generation of star sailors and dreamers – the Artemis Generation.”

Wiseman will be the commander; Glover will be his pilot; Koch and Hansen will act as the supporting “mission specialists”.

The quartet are essentially repeating the 1968 mission carried out by Apollo 8, which was the first human spaceflight to reach the Moon.

Its crew took the famous “Earthrise” picture that showed our home planet emerging from behind the lunar horizon.

(BBC News)

Indian opposition leader Rahul Gandhi has filed an appeal against his conviction and jail sentence in a criminal defamation case.

The court in Gujarat state granted him bail until the next hearing on 13 April.

Mr Gandhi had been sentenced to two years in jail for 2019 comments about Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s surname at an election rally.

The Congress leader was also later disqualified as a lawmaker.

National elections are due in India next year, and Mr Gandhi will not be allowed to stand unless his conviction is suspended or overturned.

Opposition leaders have accused the governing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of a political vendetta.

The BJP has denied this, saying that due judicial process was followed in the case.

Mr Gandhi appeared at the court in Surat city with his sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and other top Congress leaders on Monday afternoon. Many Congress workers had gathered outside the court in support of Mr Gandhi, holding banners with the words “save democracy” on them.

Legal website Live Law reported that Mr Gandhi’s appeal was accompanied by two applications: one to suspend his sentence, or secure bail, and the other to suspend his conviction. A decision in his favour in the second application could lead to his lawmaker status being reinstated, the website said.

Mr Gandhi was granted bail to appeal against his conviction by the judge who passed sentence on 23 March.

The defamation case against him, brought by BJP lawmaker Purnesh Modi, revolved around comments Mr Gandhi made in Karnataka state during an election rally: “Why do all these thieves have Modi as their surname? Nirav Modi, Lalit Modi, Narendra Modi,” he said.

Nirav Modi is a fugitive Indian diamond tycoon while Lalit Modi is a former chief of the Indian Premier League who has been banned for life by the country’s cricket board.

Purnesh Modi in his complaint alleged that the comments had defamed the entire Modi community. However, Mr Gandhi said that he made the comment to highlight corruption and it was not directed against any community.

(BBC News)

Russia’s war against Ukraine has claimed the lives of 262 Ukrainian athletes and destroyed 363 sports facilities, the country’s sports minister, Vadym Huttsait, said on Saturday.

Meeting the visiting president of the International Federation of Gymnastics, Morinari Watanabe, Huttsait said no athletes from Russia should be allowed at the Olympics or other sports competitions.

“They all support this war and attend events held in support of this war,” Huttsait said, according to a transcript on President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s website.

The International Olympic Committee has recommended the gradual return of Russian and Belarusian athletes to international competition as neutrals. It has not decided on their participation in the 2024 Paris Olympics.

Ukraine said on Friday its athletes will not be allowed to take part in qualifying events for the 2024 Games if they have to compete against Russians, a decision the IOC has criticised.

Reuters could not independently verify the number of Ukrainian athletes killed or how many facilities have been destroyed.

In the wake of Russia’s full-scale invasion on Ukraine in February 2022, a number of Ukrainian national-level athletes have taken up arms voluntarily to defend their country.

Among those killed this year alone have been figure skater Dmytro Sharpar, who died in combat near Bakhmut, and Volodymyr Androshchuk, a 22-year-old decathlon champion and future Olympic hopeful.