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Walter Cunningham, Member Of The 1st Crewed Apollo 7 Mission, Dead At 90

Walter Cunningham, Member Of The 1st Crewed Apollo 7 Mission, Dead At 90

(CTN NEWS) – WASHINGTON – Walter Cunningham, the final surviving member of NASA‘s Apollo program’s inaugural successful crewed space mission, passed away on Tuesday in Houston. He was 90.

NASA issued a statement confirming Walter Cunningham’s passing but omitted to mention the cause.

Cunningham died in a hospital “after-effects of a fall, after a long and complete life,” his family confirmed through a spokesperson, Jeff Carr.

One of the three astronauts on the Apollo 7 mission in 1968, which lasted 11 days and transmitted live television broadcasts as it orbited the Earth, Walter Cunningham helped pave the ground for the lunar landing less than a year later.

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The mission’s crew included Donn F. Eisele, a major in the Air Force, and Cunningham, a civilian at the time. On the space mission, Cunningham piloted the lunar module.

Walter Cunningham, Member Of The 1st Crewed Apollo 7 Mission, Dead At 90

Apollo 7 astronaut Walter Cunningham acknowledges the crowd before an Alliance of American Football game between the Orlando Apollos and the Atlanta Legend, Feb. 9, 2019, in Orlando, Fla. Cunningham, the last surviving astronaut from the first successful crewed space mission in NASA’s Apollo program, has died. He was 90. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack, File)

The mission took out from Cape Kennedy Air Force Station in Florida on October 11 and splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean south of Bermuda.

According to NASA, the flight of Cunningham, Eisele, and Schirra was almost flawless.

As a warm-up for the Apollo 11 moon landing in July 1969, the organization dispatched the following crew, Apollo 8, to orbit the moon in their spacecraft’s wake.

According to NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, Walter Cunningham was “above all” an explorer whose work also inspired the organization’s brand-new Artemis moon mission.

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The Apollo 7 astronauts also received a special Emmy award for their daily television reports from space. They played jokes on viewers, held up amusing signs, and imparted knowledge on space travel.

It was NASA’s first crewed space mission since the three men aboard Apollo 1 perished on January 27, 1967, in a launch pad fire.

At a 2017 Kennedy Space Center event, Cunningham recalled Apollo 7, stating that “allowed us to overcome all the challenges we had after the Apollo 1 fire and it became the longest, most successful test flight of any flying vehicle ever.”

Walter Cunningham, Member Of The 1st Crewed Apollo 7 Mission, Dead At 90

Apollo 7 astronaut Walter Cunningham speaks on the campus of Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass., during a program “Celebrating 100 Years of MIT Aerospace,” Oct. 22, 2014. Cunningham, the last surviving astronaut from the first successful crewed space mission in NASA’s Apollo program, has died. He was 90. (AP Photo/Steven Senne, File)

According to NASA, Walter Cunningham was born in Creston, Iowa, and completed his high school education there before joining the Navy in 1951 and serving as a Marine Corps pilot in Korea.

He later graduated with a physics bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of California, Los Angeles, where he also pursued a doctorate. Before joining NASA, he worked as a scientist for the Rand Corporation.

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Cunningham recounted having a hard time growing up and fantasizing of flying airplanes rather than spacecraft in an interview the year before he passed away.

Walter Cunningham told The Spokesman-Review, “We never even knew that there were astronauts while I was growing up.

Cunningham engaged in engineering, business, and investing after leaving NASA in 1971.

He also became a public speaker and radio personality. “The All-American Boys,” a memoir he wrote about his life as an astronaut and professional, was published.

Walter Cunningham, Member Of The 1st Crewed Apollo 7 Mission, Dead At 90

Apollo 7 astronaut Walter Cunningham, left, points to pictures of fellow astronaut the late Charles “Pete” Conrad while speaking with Apollo 10 astronaut Dick Gordon, center, and Andy Conrad, the son of Charles Conrad, at the opening of the Rendezvous in Space exhibit at the Museum of Flight in Seattle, Wash., July 22, 2000. (AP Photo/Jay Drowns, File)

In his later years, he also voiced pessimism about how human activity contributes to climate change, going against the scientific mainstream in writing and public speeches despite admitting he wasn’t a climate expert.

Walter Cunningham supported space exploration even if he did not crew any additional space missions after Apollo 7.

Last year, he stated, “I think that humans need to continue expanding and pushing out the levels at which they’re thriving in space.” to the Spokane, Washington, newspaper.

His wife Dot, sister Cathy Cunningham, sons Brian and Kimberly, and daughter Brian survive Cunningham.

Cunningham’s family declared, “The world has lost another great hero, and we will mourn him sincerely.”

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Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding, But Still Accounting 48% Search Revenue

Google

Google is so closely associated with its key product that its name is a verb that signifies “search.” However, Google’s dominance in that sector is dwindling.

According to eMarketer, Google will lose control of the US search industry for the first time in decades next year.

Google will remain the dominant search player, accounting for 48% of American search advertising revenue. And, remarkably, Google is still increasing its sales in the field, despite being the dominating player in search since the early days of the George W. Bush administration. However, Amazon is growing at a quicker rate.

google

Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding

Amazon will hold over a quarter of US search ad dollars next year, rising to 27% by 2026, while Google will fall even more, according to eMarketer.

The Wall Street Journal was first to report on the forecast.

Lest you think you’ll have to switch to Bing or Yahoo, this isn’t the end of Google or anything really near.

Google is the fourth-most valued public firm in the world. Its market worth is $2.1 trillion, trailing just Apple, Microsoft, and the AI chip darling Nvidia. It also maintains its dominance in other industries, such as display advertisements, where it dominates alongside Facebook’s parent firm Meta, and video ads on YouTube.

To put those “other” firms in context, each is worth more than Delta Air Lines’ total market value. So, yeah, Google is not going anywhere.

Nonetheless, Google faces numerous dangers to its operations, particularly from antitrust regulators.

On Monday, a federal judge in San Francisco ruled that Google must open up its Google Play Store to competitors, dealing a significant blow to the firm in its long-running battle with Fortnite creator Epic Games. Google announced that it would appeal the verdict.

In August, a federal judge ruled that Google has an illegal monopoly on search. That verdict could lead to the dissolution of the company’s search operation. Another antitrust lawsuit filed last month accuses Google of abusing its dominance in the online advertising business.

Meanwhile, European regulators have compelled Google to follow tough new standards, which have resulted in multiple $1 billion-plus fines.

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Pixa Bay

Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding

On top of that, the marketplace is becoming more difficult on its own.

TikTok, the fastest-growing social network, is expanding into the search market. And Amazon has accomplished something few other digital titans have done to date: it has established a habit.

When you want to buy anything, you usually go to Amazon, not Google. Amazon then buys adverts to push companies’ products to the top of your search results, increasing sales and earning Amazon a greater portion of the revenue. According to eMarketer, it is expected to generate $27.8 billion in search revenue in the United States next year, trailing only Google’s $62.9 billion total.

And then there’s AI, the technology that (supposedly) will change everything.

Why search in stilted language for “kendall jenner why bad bunny breakup” or “police moving violation driver rights no stop sign” when you can just ask OpenAI’s ChatGPT, “What’s going on with Kendall Jenner and Bad Bunny?” in “I need help fighting a moving violation involving a stop sign that wasn’t visible.” Google is working on exactly this technology with its Gemini product, but its success is far from guaranteed, especially with Apple collaborating with OpenAI and other businesses rapidly joining the market.

A Google spokeswoman referred to a blog post from last week in which the company unveiled ads in its AI overviews (the AI-generated text that appears at the top of search results). It’s Google’s way of expressing its ability to profit on a changing marketplace while retaining its business, even as its consumers steadily transition to ask-and-answer AI and away from search.

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Google has long used a single catchphrase to defend itself against opponents who claim it is a monopoly abusing its power: competition is only a click away. Until recently, that seemed comically obtuse. Really? We are going to switch to Bing? Or Duck Duck Go? Give me a break.

But today, it feels more like reality.

Google is in no danger of disappearing. However, every highly dominating company faces some type of reckoning over time. GE, a Dow mainstay for more than a century, was broken up last year and is now a shell of its previous dominance. Sears declared bankruptcy in 2022 and is virtually out of business. US Steel, long the foundation of American manufacturing, is attempting to sell itself to a Japanese corporation.

Could we remember Google in the same way that we remember Yahoo or Ask Jeeves in decades? These next few years could be significant.

SOURCE | CNN

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2024 | Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case

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Washington — Trump Media,  The Supreme Court announced Monday that it will not hear an appeal from social media platform X about a search warrant acquired by prosecutors in the election meddling case against former President Donald Trump.

The justices did not explain their rationale, and there were no recorded dissents.

The firm, which was known as Twitter before being purchased by billionaire Elon Musk, claims a nondisclosure order that prevented it from informing Trump about the warrant obtained by special counsel Jack Smith’s team violated its First Amendment rights.

The business also claims Trump should have had an opportunity to exercise executive privilege. If not reined in, the government may employ similar tactics to intercept additional privileged communications, their lawyers contended.

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Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case

Two neutral electronic privacy groups also joined in, urging the high court to hear the case on First Amendment grounds.

Prosecutors, however, claim that the corporation never shown that Trump utilized the account for official purposes, therefore executive privilege is not a problem. A lower court also determined that informing Trump could have compromised the current probe.

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Trump utilized his Twitter account in the weeks preceding up to his supporters’ attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, to spread false assertions about the election, which prosecutors claim were intended to create doubt in the democratic process.

The indictment describes how Trump used his Twitter account to encourage his followers to travel to Washington on Jan. 6, pressuring Vice President Mike Pence to reject the certification, and falsely claiming that the Capitol crowd, which battered police officers and destroyed glass, was peaceful.

musk trump

Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case

That case is now moving forward following the Supreme Court’s verdict in July, which granted Trump full immunity from criminal prosecution as a former president.

The warrant arrived at Twitter amid quick changes implemented by Musk, who bought the company in 2022 and has since cut off most of its workforce, including those dedicated to combating disinformation and hate speech.

He also welcomed back a vast list of previously banned users, including Trump, and endorsed him for the 2024 presidential election.

SOURCE | AP

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The Supreme Court Turns Down Biden’s Government Appeal in a Texas Emergency Abortion Matter.

Supreme Court

(VOR News) – A ruling that prohibits emergency abortions that contravene the Supreme Court law in the state of Texas, which has one of the most stringent abortion restrictions in the country, has been upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States. The United States Supreme Court upheld this decision.

The justices did not provide any specifics regarding the underlying reasons for their decision to uphold an order from a lower court that declared hospitals cannot be legally obligated to administer abortions if doing so would violate the law in the state of Texas.

Institutions are not required to perform abortions, as stipulated in the decree. The common populace did not investigate any opposing viewpoints. The decision was made just weeks before a presidential election that brought abortion to the forefront of the political agenda.

This decision follows the 2022 Supreme Court ruling that ended abortion nationwide.

In response to a request from the administration of Vice President Joe Biden to overturn the lower court’s decision, the justices expressed their disapproval.

The government contends that hospitals are obligated to perform abortions in compliance with federal legislation when the health or life of an expectant patient is in an exceedingly precarious condition.

This is the case in regions where the procedure is prohibited. The difficulty hospitals in Texas and other states are experiencing in determining whether or not routine care could be in violation of stringent state laws that prohibit abortion has resulted in an increase in the number of complaints concerning pregnant women who are experiencing medical distress being turned away from emergency rooms.

The administration cited the Supreme Court’s ruling in a case that bore a striking resemblance to the one that was presented to it in Idaho at the beginning of the year. The justices took a limited decision in that case to allow the continuation of emergency abortions without interruption while a lawsuit was still being heard.

In contrast, Texas has been a vocal proponent of the injunction’s continued enforcement. Texas has argued that its circumstances are distinct from those of Idaho, as the state does have an exemption for situations that pose a significant hazard to the health of an expectant patient.

According to the state, the discrepancy is the result of this exemption. The state of Idaho had a provision that safeguarded a woman’s life when the issue was first broached; however, it did not include protection for her health.

Certified medical practitioners are not obligated to wait until a woman’s life is in imminent peril before they are legally permitted to perform an abortion, as determined by the state supreme court.

The state of Texas highlighted this to the Supreme Court.

Nevertheless, medical professionals have criticized the Texas statute as being perilously ambiguous, and a medical board has declined to provide a list of all the disorders that are eligible for an exception. Furthermore, the statute has been criticized for its hazardous ambiguity.

For an extended period, termination of pregnancies has been a standard procedure in medical treatment for individuals who have been experiencing significant issues. It is implemented in this manner to prevent catastrophic outcomes, such as sepsis, organ failure, and other severe scenarios.

Nevertheless, medical professionals and hospitals in Texas and other states with strict abortion laws have noted that it is uncertain whether or not these terminations could be in violation of abortion prohibitions that include the possibility of a prison sentence. This is the case in regions where abortion prohibitions are exceedingly restrictive.

Following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which resulted in restrictions on the rights of women to have abortions in several Republican-ruled states, the Texas case was revisited in 2022.

As per the orders that were disclosed by the administration of Vice President Joe Biden, hospitals are still required to provide abortions in cases that are classified as dire emergency.

As stipulated in a piece of health care legislation, the majority of hospitals are obligated to provide medical assistance to patients who are experiencing medical distress. This is in accordance with the law.

The state of Texas maintained that hospitals should not be obligated to provide abortions throughout the litigation, as doing so would violate the state’s constitutional prohibition on abortions. In its January judgment, the 5th United States Circuit Court of Appeals concurred with the state and acknowledged that the administration had exceeded its authority.

SOURCE: AP

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