Lunar mission, Venezuela and birthright citizenship in the United States: The nights information

Four astronauts from the Artemis 2 mission have departed for the Moon. “For the first time in over fifty years, astronauts launched from Earth have set off for the Moon,” rejoices Space.com. The SLS (Space Launch System) rocket, NASA’s most powerful, “lit up the night sky” in Florida as it took off without incident from the Kennedy Space Center at 6:35 p.m. local time, with four astronauts on board heading for a ten-day journey around the Moon. This is the “first crewed trip to the Moon since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972,” the site enthuses. The Orion capsule, carrying the astronauts, detached from the rocket’s first stage eight minutes after launch and then went into orbit. It will orbit the Earth for twenty-five hours before continuing its journey to the Moon, where it is expected to arrive on Monday. The members of the Artemis 2 mission – including a woman, a person of color, and a Canadian, three firsts for a lunar flight – will only “fly over” the satellite, as Space.com specifies. However, “even if they will not orbit the Moon or land there, this mission nevertheless represents a decisive step in NASA’s renewed efforts to extend humanity’s footprint beyond low Earth orbit,” it adds. The return of humans to the lunar surface is planned for 2028, assuming that the lunar landers, still in development by SpaceX and Blue Origin, are ready on time.

The United States lifts sanctions against Delcy Rodríguez in Venezuela. The American government lifted the sanctions targeting Delcy Rodríguez, the current interim president of Venezuela, on Wednesday. “This lifting comes about three months after the military operation on January 3, during which the United States captured Nicolás Maduro and allowed Ms. Rodríguez to take over the Venezuelan government,” notes Efecto Cocuyo. Since then, the interim president has “criticized the capture of Mr. Maduro, while declaring herself willing to maintain cooperative and respectful relations with the United States,” the site continues. She welcomed the decision, seeing it as “a step towards normalization and strengthening of relations” between Caracas and Washington, and called for the lifting of the remaining sanctions on her country. “The sanctions involved freezing Ms. Rodríguez’s assets in the United States and banning American citizens from doing business with her,” specifies the Venezuelan media.

The US Supreme Court skeptical of Trump’s challenge to birthright citizenship. The justices of the Supreme Court, mostly conservative, expressed skepticism on Wednesday about President Donald Trump’s arguments to eliminate automatic granting of American citizenship to children born to undocumented immigrant parents, observes CNN. Birthright citizenship has been enshrined in the 14th Amendment of the Constitution since 1868. “In response to the Trump administration’s argument that the world has changed since 1868,” Chief Justice John Roberts retorted, “It’s a new world, but it’s the same Constitution,” reports the American channel. Conservative justices Amy Coney Barrett and Neil Gorsuch also “questioned the main arguments put forth by Mr. Trump,” it adds. Donald Trump, who attended part of the hearings – a first for a sitting president – could face another setback after the Court invalidated most of his tariffs in February. The decision of the justices is expected in July.