Raphael

The Hyperloop was never meant to be built. Elon Musk admitted it was all about fueling opposition to California’s high-speed rail project so it would get canceled.

At least 289 children are known to have died at sea in the first six months of this year while attempting to reach Europe, according to the United Nations children agency (UNICEF).

The figure is nearly double the number recorded in the first half of 2022, the UNICEF said on Friday, adding that the children made the perilous journeys across the Mediterranean Sea driven by conflict and climate change.

Verena Knaus, the UNICEF’s global lead on migration and displacement, said the true figures were likely to be higher as many shipwrecks on the Central Mediterranean leave no survivors or go unrecorded.

Republicans in the United States House of Representatives have passed an annual defence funding bill that highlights the party’s conservative priorities – and sticking points – in advance of the 2024 election season.

Democrats have decried the bill approved on Friday, which included anti-LGBTQ, anti-diversity and anti-abortion rights provisions. It passed by a 219 to 210 largely party-line vote in the majority Republican chamber. Four Democrats voted in support of the bill.