Sir Richard Branson’s private space tourism company will launch its first flight carrying the billionaire, two pilots, and three mission specialists to the fringes of space.
The VSS Unity spaceplane will be launched in mid-air after dropping from the belly of its mothership at an altitude of about 9.4 miles (15km) before its rocket fires the craft and its crew into sub-orbital space 50 miles (80km) above the Earth.
The British entrepreneur announced his plan to reach space nine days before Amazon boss Jeff Bezos is set to launch aboard his own mission. Although there are questions about whether Virgin Galactic‘s maximum altitude of 80km actually qualifies as space.
The mothership took off from the Spaceport America runway in New Mexico approximately an hour later than initially planned due to bad weather.
Once the VSS Unity spaceplane reaches its maximum altitude and the crew experience a few minutes of microgravity, the rocket motor will turn and the crew will glide to a landing.
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As part of the return trip, a feathering system slows and stabilises the craft as it plummets further down through the atmosphere towards the Earth.
Last December Virgin Galactic aborted a landmark test flight of its rocket-powered space plane, despite everything getting the all-clear a minute before launch.
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The Unity 22 mission will be the company’s first to carry a full crew of two pilots and four mission specialists in the cabin but will be the 22nd flight test for rocket plane VSS Unity.
Taking off from a spaceport in New Mexico, the crew will be evaluating the “cabin environment, seat comfort, the weightless experience and the views of Earth that the spaceship delivers” in the commercial cabin.
Virgin Galactic is expected to complete several more test flights before beginning commercial launches.
Ultimately the company aims to be operating multiple space tourism flights a year, and already has more than 600 customers for the $250,000 (£189,000) seats – including Justin Bieber and Leonardo DiCaprio.
A 73-year-old woman who took part in two killings on the orders of cult leader Charles Manson in 1969 should be released from prison on parole, a Californian appeals court has ruled.
Leslie Van Houten is serving a life sentence for helping Manson and other followers kill Leno LaBianca, a grocer in Los Angeles, and his wife Rosemary.
Van Houten was 19 at the time.
Mr LaBianca’s body was carved up during the killing and the couple’s blood was smeared on the walls.
The killings came the day after other Manson followers, not including Van Houten, killed pregnant actress Sharon Tate and four others in violence that shocked Los Angeles and the nation.
Image: Charles Manson is escorted to his arraignment on conspiracy-murder charges in connection with the Sharon Tate murder case in 1969. Pic: AP
Van Houten, then one of Manson’s youngest followers, has spent more than 50 years in prison.
She has been recommended for parole five times since 2016. All of those recommendations were rejected by either Mr Newsom or former California governor Jerry Brown.
Mr Newsom has said that Van Houten still poses a danger to society. In rejecting her parole, he said she offered an inconsistent and inadequate explanation for her involvement with Manson at the time of the killings.
Image: Leslie Van Houten in a Los Angeles lockup in 1971. Pic: AP
Image: Leslie Van Houten sits in court during her parole hearing at the California Institution for Women at Frontera in 1986. Pic: AP
But the Second District Court of Appeal in Los Angeles has now ruled 2-1 to reverse Mr Newsom’s decision, writing there is “no evidence to support the Governor’s conclusions” about Van Houten’s fitness for parole.
It marks the first time a court has overruled a governor’s denial of parole to a Manson follower, according to the Los Angeles Times.
However, California Attorney General Rob Bonta could still ask the California Supreme Court to stop her release.
Neither his office nor Mr Newsom’s immediately responded to requests for comment on whether they would do so, according to local reports.
Nancy Tetreault, Van Houten’s lawyer, said she expects Mr Bonta to ask the state’s supreme court to review the court’s decision in a process that could take years.
Manson, who died in prison in 2017 at age 83, instructed his mostly young and female followers to murder seven people in August 1969 in what prosecutors said was part of a plan to spark a race war.
Although Manson, one of the 20th century’s most notorious criminals, did not personally kill any of the seven victims, he was found guilty of ordering their murders.
Image: Charles Manson pictured in 2017. Pic: California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation/AP
The death sentences given to Manson and his followers were commuted to life in prison after capital punishment was ruled unconstitutional in 1972.
Van Houten’s 1971 original conviction and death sentence was initially overturned on appeal, but she was retried, convicted and sentenced to prison in 1978.
Ron DeSantis has begun his bid to become the Republican candidate for US president by claiming he is America’s saviour and calling some of frontrunner Donald Trump’s criticisms “ridiculous”.
His key rival for the GOP nomination is former president Mr Trump, who has a big lead in opinion polls and an unbreakable grip on the party, according to some commentators.
At his first event as a candidate, Mr DeSantis, 44, told around 500 people at an evangelical Christian church in Iowa on Tuesday the US is “going in the wrong direction. We can see it and we can feel it.”
His clearest criticisms of the frontrunner came when speaking to reporters afterwards.
Promising to “fight back” against the former president, he rubbished Mr Trump’s suggestion that New York’s pandemic response was better than Florida’s, calling it “detached from reality.
“That criticism is ridiculous. But it is an indication that the former president would double down on his lockdowns.
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“When we disagreed [while Mr Trump was president], I never bashed him publicly because he was taking all this incoming from the media, the left, and even some Republicans.
“And the whole collusion was a total farce. And he was treated very, very poorly. And that bothered me, and it still bothers me to be honest.
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Image: Supporters outside the DeSantis rally in Des Moines
“So, I never really would air those disagreements. Well, now he’s attacking me over some of these disagreements, but I think he’s doing it in a way that the voters are going to side with me.”
Mr DeSantis becomes the latest in a crowded Republican contest to decide whether the party will move on from Trump in 2024 as it aims to retake the White House from Democrat Joe Biden.
Those already in the GOP field include Trump, former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley, South Carolina senator Tim Scott, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson.
Sometimes described as “Trump without the chaos”, Mr DeSantis has nicknamed Florida “the place where woke goes to die” and taken on the Disney Corporation after it opposed a state law banning classroom lessons on sexual orientation and gender identity in early years.
Mr DeSantis’ campaign funds could increase by up to $80m (£64,724m) after a department in his own administration changed state rules, NBC said.
A state-level political committee Mr DeSantis led for the past five years, known as Friends of Ron DeSantis, is widely expected to transfer the sum to a federal super PAC called Never Back Down backing his bid for president.
The change overturns at least five years of state election rules, NBC said.
A federal judge will hear an appeal from a conservative think tank to unseal Prince Harry’s US immigration records following revelations in his book that he took drugs.
Nile Gardner, of the Heritage Foundation, tweeted on Tuesday a hearing on his organisation’s suit will be heard on 6 June.
He wrote that the “Prince Harry immigration records case will be held in Washington, DC Federal Court in front of a US Federal Judge”.
He also announced the proceedings will be open to the press.
Past drug use can be grounds to deny a visa application for the US.
The Heritage Foundation is trying to discover if the revelations in the Duke of Sussex’s memoirs Spare were documented in his visa application.
In the book, it was revealed Harry had taken cocaine, smoked marijuana and tried magic mushrooms.
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It comes amid an ongoing High Court trial involving the duke, in which he is bringing a contested claim against Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN) over allegations of unlawful information gathering.
He is also awaiting rulings over whether similar cases against Daily Mail publisher Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL), and News Group Newspapers (NGN) – which publishes The Sun – can go ahead.
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A judgment is also expected in the duke’s libel claim against ANL over an article on his case against the Home Office.