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Dont have enough airline miles for that free flight? United Airlines is now letting people pool and share their frequent-flyer points with family and friends, a feature currently offered by some smaller carriers.

United said Thursday that a pool leader can pick up to four other people to set up a joint account in its MileagePlus program.

The group leader must be over 18, but there is no minimum age for others, so parents can sign up kids. Everyone in the pool must have their own United frequent-flyer account.

JetBlue Airways, Spirit Airlines and Frontier Airlines already offer pooling, with the rules varying a bit from one to another.

Frequent-flyer programs remain popular despite complaints that the value of miles and points decline over time because airlines raise the requirements for redeeming them for flights or other items.

The programs are valuable to the airlines by increasing customer loyalty and giving consumers a reason to get an airline-branded credit card. Uniteds credit cards are issued by Chase.

United points are in the middle of the pack for value among programs at US and international airlines, according to a recent analysis by the consumer site NerdWallet.

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UK

Starmer will be breathing a sigh of relief after clinching shock victory over SNP and Reform UK

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Starmer will be breathing a sigh of relief after clinching shock victory over SNP and Reform UK

Anything other than a win for Labour would have been a humiliation in this contest.

It wasn’t any old local by-election – this was a contest where Labour knew it could act as a mini barometer of Sir Keir Starmer’s recent U-turn on winter fuel payments and become a test of how popular the politics of Nigel Farage are in Scotland.

Labour are power hungry and have, for a long time, set their sights on forming the next Scottish government.

The prime minister will this morning be breathing a sigh of relief after clinching this shock victory over the SNP and Reform UK.

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New MSP’s message to Farage and ‘his mob’

This contest on the outskirts of Glasgow came at a time where Labour had been firefighting and grappling with polling suggesting they had blown their chances of ousting the SNP from power in Edinburgh after almost 20 years.

The SNP had a spring in their step during this campaign after a chaotic couple of years.

First Minister and SNP leader John Swinney had apparently stemmed the bleeding after the infamous police fraud investigation, endless fallout over gender identity reforms, and last year’s general election where they were almost wiped out.

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This result leaves them no further forward than 12 months ago with questions over the party’s strategy.

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Scottish Labour win by-election as SNP suffer shock defeat

‘Farage could become PM – this is how Labour can stop him’

SNP and Reform UK election billboard posters in Larkhall, Lanarkshire, on the last day of campaigning for the Hamilton, Larkhall and Stoneho
Image:
SNP and Reform UK election billboard posters in Larkhall. Pic: PA

Reform UK is very much in the Scottish picture now, finishing a few hundred votes behind the nationalists.

This is a party led by a man who barely registered any support north of the border for many years. A remarkable transformation.

The surge in support has spooked many because they know fine well Nigel Farage is only just getting started.

One poll had Reform UK forming the next official opposition at Holyrood. After tonight, that might be a tall order but Mr Farage is shaking things up at the expense of the Conservatives.

The unpredictable nature of this contest may give us a taste of what is to come.

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UK

EuroMillions: Single ticket-holder could win UK’s biggest lottery prize tonight

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EuroMillions: Single ticket-holder could win UK's biggest lottery prize tonight

A single ticket-holder could win the biggest lottery prize the UK has ever seen if they match the right numbers in tonight’s EuroMillions draw.

The jackpot has rolled over to an estimated £208m, after Tuesday’s £199m draw – which also would have been a record-breaking amount – had no winners.

The winner would instantly become richer than Adele and Harry Styles, while also bagging the top spot on the National Lottery’s biggest wins list.

Housing raffles take UK by storm – how likely are you to win?

Andy Carter, senior winners’ adviser at Allwyn, said: “We are now on the verge of potentially creating the biggest National Lottery winner this country has ever seen.”

The previous largest prize pot was won by an anonymous UK ticket-holder, who took home £195m on 19 July 2022.

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Just two months earlier, Joe and Jess Thwaite, from Gloucester, won £184,262,899 with a Lucky Dip ticket. At the time, Joe was a communications sales engineer, and Jess ran a hairdressing salon with her sister.

Mr Thwaite said he woke up at 5am as usual, and checked his phone to see an email saying, “Good news, you have won a prize”.

But he did not immediately wake his wife, choosing to let her sleep in.

“I saw how much and I didn’t know what to do,” Mr Thwaite said.

“I couldn’t go back to sleep, I didn’t want to wake Jess up, so I just laid there for what seemed like forever. I spent some time searching for property with no budget limit, which was a novelty!”

When his wife woke up, she assumed the National Lottery app was wrong.

Read more:
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Man celebrates £5.2m win with surprising first purchase
Trainee gas engineer, 20, wins £7.5m – but won’t quit work

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Winner ‘thought it was a scam’

In February last year, Richard and Debbie Nuttall were revealed as the UK winners of a £61m EuroMillions jackpot – who at first thought they had only won £2.60.

The couple from Lancashire split the £123m prize with a winner in Spain.

This year’s biggest prize, of £83m went to a UK winner in January.

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Science

Japanese Private Lunar Lander Resilience Fails Mission, Crashes on Moon

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Japanese Private Lunar Lander Resilience Fails Mission, Crashes on Moon

A Japanese spacecraft attempting to achieve the country’s first private moon landing instead crashed on the lunar surface, according to mission officials. The Resilience lander, developed by Tokyo-based ispace, lost communication one minute and 45 seconds before its scheduled soft touchdown on June 5 at 3:17 p.m. EDT. The descent was targeted for the Mare Frigoris region on the Moon’s near side. ispace had its second problem on the moon when its laser rangefinder broke, which is a big improvement over its prior failure in April 2023.

Japan’s Resilience Lunar Lander Crashes in Hard Landing, ispace Vows to Learn and Rebuild

As per an official statement from ispace, telemetry from Resilience revealed that the rangefinder’s delayed data caused a failure in adjusting landing speed. This likely led to a “hard landing”, suggesting the spacecraft hit the moon’s surface too fast to survive or complete its mission. The lander, carrying five payloads, such as a Tenacious rover and scientific instruments, crashed with no survivors. The firm’s CEO, Takeshi Hakamada, apologised and remarked that the company would use the mission to learn about future missions.

The Hakuto-R Mission 2 team launched a 7.5-foot-tall, 2,200-pound Resilience lander into space aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in early May. But with a perfect orbit, the lander smashed into the lunar surface at 192 metres – an echo of Mission 1’s mission failure in 2023, which crashed because a fault in one of its altitude sensors was not corrected.

The Resilience crash adds to private attempts to explore the moon, including the unsuccessful Beresheet and Peregrine missions. Crewed landings such as Odysseus and Blue Ghost prove that dreams of commercial space are possible. The second Hakuto-R mission was a private attempt and a blow to Japan’s space ambitions. Failure has not stopped ispace development for Mission 3 and Mission 4 with its larger Apex 1.0 lander.

Hakamada mentioned that the priority for the team was now to find out what caused the crash. “Supporters are disappointed,” CFO Nozaki says, “but ispace has yet to cover the moon, and the road does not end, even if Mission 2 didn’t go as planned.”

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