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Nordlingen is no ordinary German town. With its red roofs, church towers, and ring of ancient walls, it wears its medieval charm beautifully. But beneath the picturesque streets and historic spires lies a story shaped by a meteor, a giant crater, and the wreckage of deep space. Hidden beneath its historic charm is evidence of a catastrophic cosmic event. The entire town sits inside the Nordlinger Ries, a massive meteor crater formed around 15 million years ago when an asteroid crashed into Earth. The impact created rocks filled with microscopic diamonds that were later used to build much of the town itself. Millions of years later, NASA recognised the site’s unusual geology and brought Apollo-era astronauts there to study terrain similar to the Moon’s surface. The diamond-filled meteor crater that built the German town of Nordlingen Scientists estimate the asteroid responsible for the Ries crater was roughly 1 to 1.5 km wide. Travelling at enormous speed, it struck southern Germany wit..

A newly discovered near-Earth asteroid known as 2026 JH2 is set to make an unusually close flyby of Earth on May 18, according to orbital data tracked by NASA and astronomers monitoring near-Earth objects. The asteroid, estimated to be roughly the size of a school bus, was only detected days before its close approach, making it one of the more closely watched small-body encounters of the month. While the object poses no impact threat to Earth, its trajectory will bring it remarkably close in astronomical terms, giving astronomers and amateur skywatchers a rare opportunity to observe a newly discovered asteroid during a near-Earth pass.What is asteroid 2026 JH2?Asteroid 2026 JH2 is classified as an Apollo-type near-Earth asteroid, meaning its orbit crosses Earth’s orbital path around the Sun. The object was identified by observatories including the Mount Lemmon Survey in Arizona, part of the global network dedicated to detecting potentially hazardous objects in space.Preliminary observa..

Israeli Prime ⁠Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the ⁠United Arab Emirates and met ⁠the Emirati president during the war with Iran, the Prime Minister’s Office said on Wednesday in what would be their first confirmed meeting.
According to the statement, the meeting resulted in a “historic breakthrough” in relations between ‌Israel and the UAE.
A source familiar with the meeting said Netanyahu and Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed (MBZ) met in Al-Ain, an oasis city by the Oman border, on March 26 and…

AdvertisementGermanyWorldEuropePaediatrician in Germany charged with sex offences in 130 casesMost of the offences were committed while the accused was working at a hospital near Berlin, the prosecutor’s office says
2-MIN READ2-MIN ListendpaPublished: 1:39am, 14 May 2026A paediatrician at a hospital near Berlin has been charged with sex offences in 130 cases, many of which are said to have taken place at the hospital, prosecutors said on Wednesday.
The extent of the offences, which include serious sexual abuse of children and rape, had previously been unknown. The paediatrician has been in pre-trial custody since November, with prosecutors citing a risk of reoffending as a reason for the man’s continued detention.
In January, it became known that the doctor was alleged to have sexually abused a child while on duty at the hospital in Rathenow, west of Berlin. Following a complaint by the child’s mother, the police carried out searches, with investigators seizing numerous data storage de..

US universities are seeing a fall in foreign student enrolment, with experts warning the decline could deepen further as Donald Trump’s hardline immigration policies continue to reshape country’s higher education system.A new report released on Monday found that international student enrolment for the spring 2026 semester fell by 20% compared with the same period last year. The study was conducted by international education groups including NAFSA and surveyed 149 universities and colleges across US.More than 60% of the institutions said they had recorded lower numbers of foreign students in both undergraduate and postgraduate programmes. Graduate enrolment was hit even harder, with universities reporting an average decline of 24%.The figures have alarmed educators, who fear US is becoming a less welcoming destination for overseas students under Trump’s increasingly restrictive immigration agenda.Already, international student arrivals into US in August fell by 19% from the previous yea..

ICE announced a major crackdown on OPT program meant for foreign students who are F-1 visa holders.

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced a major crackdown on an immigration program that allows international students to work temporarily in the country. Calling the OPT program a 'magnet for fraud', ICE director Todd M Lyons said the agency uncovered irregularities involving nearly 10,000 foreign students participating in the federal government’s Optional Practical Training program. When the OPT was created under the Bush administration and expanded under the Obama administration, the Department of Homeland Security anticipated only a few thousand foreign students would receive training approval before returning home, Lyons said, giving a background of the program.But instead of what was expected, OPT ballooned into an uncontrolled guest worker pipeline with hundreds of thousands of foreign students working in the United States, the director said in a press ..

Russia on Tuesday test-fired a new intercontinental ballistic missile as part of efforts to modernise the country’s nuclear forces, a launch hailed by President Vladimir Putin just days after his claim that the fighting in Ukraine is nearing an end.
Putin said that the nuclear-armed Sarmat missile would enter combat service at the end of the year. It was built to replace the ageing Soviet-built Voyevoda.
“This is the most powerful missile in the world,” Putin declared, adding that the combined…

First lady Melania Trump will not accompany US President Donald Trump on his trip to China, the Office of the First Lady told the South China Morning Post.
“First Lady Melania Trump is not travelling this time,” a spokesperson said in an email response.
Unlike his 2017 visit, the US leader will travel without his wife for a three-day trip to China, beginning on Wednesday.
In November 2017, Melania Trump accompanied the president on a high-profile state visit to Beijing, a trip characterised by…

Can calling the police to report a crime be considered as a law and enforcement record in the US?

Immigration attorney Scott Decker highlighted a case in which the US Citizenship and Immigration Services denied an applicant's STEM OPT extension, citing that the individual had a “law enforcement interaction”. The agency did not say what the law enforcement interaction was but Decker said that he was aware that his client once called the police after being assaulted on the street.”In short, USCIS is taking the position that being a crime victim and calling the police for help is such a bad thing that it makes you ineligible for any discretionary benefit, such as obtaining an extension of status in the US,” Decker wrote in his LinkedIn post.”I suspect/hope that the USCIS officer was just being lazy, saw in their system that the client’s name appeared in a police report, and never looked any further. Hopefully, upon receiving the response to the NOID, USCIS will come to its senses. ..

When Napoleon Bonaparte died in exile on Saint Helena in 1821, he left behind more than a military legacy and a political legend. In his will, he instructed that his hair be preserved and turned into a bracelet, with strands sent to members of his family, including his mother, siblings and son. That request reflected a wider 19th-century custom in which hair was kept as a personal memorial after death. Napoleon’s hair was cut before the autopsy, and the locks that survived became some of the most curious relics linked to him.
Napoleon Bonaparte’s final wish written into the willNapoleon’s will makes the request unusually plain. It states that his valet Marchand should preserve his hair and have it made into a bracelet, with pieces sent to close family members and other members of his inner circle, including the Empress Marie-Louise, his mother and his brothers and sisters, with a larger bracelet intended for his son. In other words, this was not an offhand legend that grew up later; it..