Expectations Here are the reasons SpaceX won nearly all recent military launch contracts "I expect that the government will follow all the rules and be fair and follow all the laws." Stephen Clark – Apr 9, 2025 6:01 pm | 35 President Donald Trump and Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, speak to the press as they stand next to a Tesla vehicle on the South Portico of the White House on March 11, 2025. Credit: Photo by Mandel Ngan/AFP President Donald Trump and Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, speak to the press as they stand next to a Tesla vehicle on the South Portico of the White House on March 11, 2025. Credit: Photo by Mandel Ngan/AFP Story text Size Small Standard Large Width * Standard Wide Links Standard Orange * Subscribers only   Learn more In the last week, the US Space Force awarded SpaceX a $5.9 billion deal to make Elon Musk's space company the Pentagon's leading launch provider, and then it assigned the vast majority of this year's most lucrative launch contracts to SpaceX. On top of these actions, the Space Force reassigned the launch of a GPS navigation satellite from United Launch Alliance's long-delayed Vulcan rocket to fly on SpaceX's Falcon 9. ULA, a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin, is SpaceX's chief US rival in the market for military satellite launches. Given the close relationship between Musk and President Donald Trump, it's not out of bounds to ask why SpaceX is racking up so many wins. Some plans floated by the Trump administration involving SpaceX in recent months have raised concerns over conflicts of interest. Tory Bruno, ULA's president and CEO, doesn't seem too worried in his public statements. In a roundtable with reporters this week at the annual Space Symposium conference in Colorado, Bruno was asked about Musk's ties with Trump. "We have not been impacted by our competitor's position advising the president, certainly not yet," Bruno said. "I expect that the government will follow all the rules and be fair and follow all the laws, and so we're behaving that way." It's a separate concern whether the Pentagon should predominantly rely on a single provider for access to space, be it a launch company like SpaceX led by a billionaire government insider or a provider like ULA that, so far, hasn't proven its new Vulcan rocket can meet the Space Force's schedules. Military officials are unanimous in the answer to that question: "No." That's why the Space Force is keen on adding to the Pentagon's roster of launch providers. In the last 12 months, the Space Force has brought Blue Origin, Rocket Lab, and Stoke Space to join SpaceX and ULA in the mix for national security launches. Results matter The reason Bruno can say Musk's involvement in the Trump administration so far hasn't affected ULA is simple. SpaceX is cheaper and has a ready-made line of Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets available to launch the Pentagon's satellites. ULA's Vulcan rocket is now certified to launch military payloads, but it reached this important milestone years behind schedule. The Pentagon announced Friday that SpaceX, ULA, and Blue Origin—Jeff Bezos' space company—won contracts worth $13.7 billion to share responsibilities for launching approximately 54 of the military's most critical space missions from 2027 through 2032. SpaceX received the lion's share of the missions with an award for 28 launches, while ULA got 19. Blue Origin, a national security launch business newcomer, will fly seven missions. This comes out to a 60-40 split between SpaceX and ULA, not counting Blue Origin's seven launches, which the Space Force set aside for a third contractor. It's a reversal of the 60-40 sharing scheme in the last big military launch competition in 2020, when ULA took the top award over SpaceX. Space Force officials anticipate Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket will be certified for national security missions next year, allowing it to begin winning launch task orders. Tory Bruno, president and CEO of United Launch Alliance, speaks with reporters at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on May 6, 2024. Credit: Paul Hennessy/Anadolu via Getty Images Bruno said he wasn't surprised with the outcome of this year's launch competition, known as Phase 3 of the National Security Space Launch (NSSL) program. "We're happy to get it," he said Monday. "I felt that winning 60 percent the first time was a little bit of an upset," Bruno said of the 2020 competition with SpaceX. "I believe they expected to win 60 then ... Therefore, I believed this time around that they would compete that much harder, and that I was not going to price dive in order to guarantee a win." While we know roughly how many launches each company will get from the Space Force, the military hasn't determined which specific missions will fly with ULA, SpaceX, or Blue Origin. Once per year, the Space Force will convene a "mission assignment board" to divvy up individual task orders. Simply geography Officials announced Monday that this year's assignment board awarded seven missions to SpaceX and two launches to ULA. The list includes six Space Force missions and three for the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO). SpaceX's seven wins are worth a combined $845.8 million, with an average price of $120.8 million per launch. Three will fly on Falcon 9 rockets, and four will launch on SpaceX's Falcon Heavy. NROL-97 on a Falcon Heavy from Cape Canaveral USSF-15 (GPS IIIF-3) on a Falcon Heavy from Cape Canaveral USSF-174 on a Falcon Heavy from Cape Canaveral USSF-186 on a Falcon Heavy from Cape Canaveral USSF-234 on a Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral NROL-96 on a Falcon 9 from Vandenberg NROL-157 on a Falcon 9 from Vandenberg The Space Force's two orders to ULA are valued at $427.6 million, averaging $213.8 million per mission. Both missions will launch from Florida, one with a GPS navigation satellite to medium-Earth orbit and another with a next-generation geosynchronous missile warning satellite named NGG-2. USSF-49 (GPS IIIF-2) on a Vulcan from Cape Canaveral USSF-50 (NGG-2) on a Vulcan from Cape Canaveral So, why did ULA only get 22 percent of this year's task orders, instead of something closer to 40 percent? It turns out ULA was not eligible for two of these missions because the company's West Coast launch pad for the Vulcan rocket is still under construction at Vandenberg Space Force Base. The Space Force won't assign specific West Coast missions to ULA until the launch pad is finished and certified, according to Brig. Gen. Kristin Panzenhagen, chief of the Space Force's "Assured Access to Space" office. Vandenberg, a military facility on the Southern California coast, has a wide range of open ocean to the south, perfect for rockets delivering payloads into polar orbits. Rockets flown out of Cape Canaveral typically fly to the east on trajectories useful for launching satellites into the GPS network or into geosynchronous orbit. "A company can be certified for a subset of missions while it continues to work on meeting the certification criteria for the broader set of missions," Panzenhagen said. "In this case, ULA was not certified for West Coast launches yet. They’re working on that." Because of this rule, SpaceX won task orders for the NROL-96 and NROL-157 missions by default. The Space Force's assignment of the USSF-15 mission to SpaceX makes some sense, too. Going forward, the Space Force wants to have Vulcan and Falcon Heavy as options for adding to the GPS network. This will be the first GPS payload to launch on Falcon Heavy, allowing SpaceX engineers to complete a raft of up-front analysis and integration work. Engineers won't have to repeat this work on future Falcon Heavy flights carrying identical GPS satellites. From monopoly to niche A decade ago, ULA was the sole launch provider to deploy the Pentagon's fleet of surveillance, communication, and navigation satellites. The Air Force certified SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket for national security missions in May 2015, opening the market for competition for the first time since Boeing and Lockheed Martin merged their rocket divisions to create ULA in 2006. ULA's monopoly, which Bruno acknowledged, has now eroded into making the company a niche player in the military launch market. "A monopoly is not healthy," he said. "We were one for a few years before I came to ULA, and that was because no one else had the capability, and there weren’t that many missions. There weren’t enough to support many providers. There are now, so this is better." There are at least a couple of important reasons the Space Force is flying more missions than 10 or 20 years ago. One is that Pentagon officials believe the United States is now in competition with a near-peer great power, China, with a rapidly growing presence in space. Military leaders say this requires more US hardware in orbit. Another is that the cost of launching something into space is lower than it was when ULA enjoyed its dominant position. SpaceX has led the charge in reducing the cost of accessing space, thanks to its success in pioneering reusable commercial rockets. Many of the new types of missions the Space Force plans to launch in the next few years will go to low-Earth orbit (LEO), a region of space a few hundred miles above the planet. There, the Space Force plans to deploy hundreds of satellites for a global missile detection, missile tracking, and data relay network. Eventually, the military may place hundreds or more space-based interceptors in LEO as part of the "Golden Dome" missile defense program pushed by the Trump administration. United Launch Alliance's second Vulcan rocket underwent a countdown dress rehearsal last year. Credit: United Launch Alliance Traditionally, the military has operated missile tracking and communications satellites in much higher geosynchronous orbits some 22,000 miles (36,000 kilometers) over the equator. At that altitude, satellites revolve around the Earth at the same speed as the planet's rotation, allowing a spacecraft to maintain a constant vigil over the same location. The Space Force still has a few of those kinds of missions to launch, along with mobile, globe-trotting surveillance satellites and eavesdropping signals intelligence spy platforms for the National Reconnaissance Office. Bruno argues ULA's Vulcan rocket, despite being more expensive, is best suited for these bespoke missions. So far, the Space Force's awards seem to bear it out. "Our rocket has a unique niche within this marketplace," Bruno said. "There really are two kinds of missions from the rocket’s standpoint. There are ones where you drop off in LEO, and there are ones where you drop off in higher orbits. You design your rockets differently for that. It doesn’t mean we can’t drop off in LEO, it doesn’t mean [SpaceX] can’t drop off in a higher energy orbit, but we’re more efficient at those because we designed for that." There's some truth in that argument. The Vulcan rocket's upper stage, called the Centaur V, burns liquid hydrogen fuel with better fuel efficiency than the kerosene-fueled engine on SpaceX's upper stage. And SpaceX must use the more expensive Falcon Heavy rocket for the most demanding missions, expending the rocket's core booster to devote more propellant toward driving the payload into orbit. SpaceX has launched at a rate nearly 34 times higher than United Launch Alliance since the start of 2023, but ULA has more experience with high-energy missions, featuring more complex maneuvers to place military payloads directly into geosynchronous orbit, and sometimes releasing multiple payloads at different locations in the geosynchronous belt. This is one of the most challenging mission profiles for any rocket, requiring a high-endurance upper stage, like Vulcan's Centaur V, capable of cruising through space for eight or more hours. SpaceX has flown a long-duration version of its upper stage on several missions by adding an extended mission kit. This gives the rocket longer battery life and a custom band of thermal paint to help ensure its kerosene fuel does not freeze in the cold environment of space. A SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket rolls to the launch pad in Florida in June 2024. The rocket's upper stage sports a strip of gray thermal paint to keep propellants at the proper temperature for a long-duration cruise through space. Credit: SpaceX On the other hand, the overwhelming majority of SpaceX's missions target low-Earth orbit, where Falcon 9 rockets deploy Starlink Internet satellites, send crews and cargo to the International Space Station, and regularly launch multi-payload rideshare missions. These launches maximize the Falcon 9's efficiencies with booster recovery and reuse. SpaceX is proficient and prolific with these missions, launching them every couple of days. Launch, land, repeat. "They tend to be more efficient at the LEO drop-offs, I’ll be honest about that," Bruno said. "That means there’s a competitive space in the middle, and then there’s kind of these end cases. So, we’ll keep winning when it’s way over in our space, they will win when it’s way over in theirs, and then in the middle it’s kind of a toss-up for any given mission." Recent history seems to support Bruno's hypothesis. Last year, SpaceX and ULA competed head-to-head for nine specific launch contracts, or task orders, in a different Space Force competition. The launches will place national security satellites into low-Earth orbit, and SpaceX won all nine of them. Since 2020, ULA has won more Space Force task orders than SpaceX for high-energy missions, although the inverse was true in this year's round of launch orders. The military's launch contracting strategy gives the Space Force flexibility to swap payloads between rockets, add more missions, or deviate from the 60-40 share to SpaceX and ULA. This has precedent. Between 2020 and 2024, ULA received 54 percent of military launches, short of the 60 percent anticipated in their original contract. This amounted to ULA winning three fewer task orders, or a lost value of about $350 million, because of delays in development of the Vulcan rocket. That's the cost of doing business with the Pentagon. Military officials don't want their satellites sitting on the ground. The national policy of assured access to space materialized after the Challenger accident in 1986. NASA grounded the Space Shuttle for two-and-a-half years, and the military had no other way to put its largest satellites into orbit, leading the Pentagon to accelerate development of new versions of the Atlas, Delta, and Titan rockets dating back to the 1960s. Military and intelligence officials were again stung by a spate of failures with the Titan IV in the 1990s, when it was the only heavy-lift launcher in the Pentagon's inventory. Then, ULA's Delta IV Heavy rocket was the sole heavy-lifter available to the military for nearly two decades. Today, the Space Force has two heavy-lift options, and may have a third soon with Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket. This all has the added benefit of bringing down costs, according to Col. Doug Pentecost, deputy director of the Space Force's Assured Access to Space directorate. "If you bundle a bunch of missions together, you can get a better price point," he said. "We awarded $13.7 billion. We thought this was going to cost us 15.5, so we saved $1.7 billion with this competition, showing that we have great industry out there trying to do good stuff for us." Stephen Clark Space Reporter Stephen Clark Space Reporter Stephen Clark is a space reporter at Ars Technica, covering private space companies and the world’s space agencies. Stephen writes about the nexus of technology, science, policy, and business on and off the planet. 35 Comments

Paul Souders/Getty Images Lonesome George, the last of the Pinta Island tortoises, died in 2012, leaving no offspring. His solitude was imposed upon him by humans who killed the rest of his species and brought goats to his island in the Galapagos, destroying their habitat. But Lonesome George probably didn’t much mind being on his own. Tortoises are generally solitary, coming together only to mate. The same is true of most reptiles and even many mammals, including bears, moose, tigers, sloths, platypuses, rhinos and pangolins. As social creatures ourselves, it is only natural that we are fascinated by animal societies, from wolf packs to ant colonies. But to understand sociality, we must look at the flip side: why do some animals prefer to go it alone? Surprisingly, researchers have paid little attention to this question. “People are only interested in group-living species with complex societies,” says Carsten Schradin at the Hubert Curien Pluridisciplinary Institute in Strasbourg, France. “But if you don’t understand why, in many cases, solitary living is the better solution, you also miss a total understanding of group living.” Now, Schradin and a handful of pioneering biologists are addressing this oversight. Already, their research reveals that being solitary isn’t simply the ancestral lifestyle for mammals, but an evolved strategy, a specialised way of living, with its own pros and cons. What’s more, animals considered solitary aren’t necessarily antisocial: it turns out that many of them have structured social networks, even if they spend most of their time by themselves. These creatures give us a new perspective…

President Donald Trump has released a series of executive orders targeting law firms that he views as having crossed him. Andrew Harnik/Getty Images 2025-04-09T22:45:33Z Save Saved Read in app This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now. Have an account? President Donald Trump has added another law firm to his list of targets. On Wednesday, Trump issued an executive order targeting Susman Godfrey. Susman previously represented Dominion Voting Systems in its suit against Fox News after the 2020 election. President Donald Trump on Wednesday added Susman Godfrey to the list of law firms he's targeting with the weight of the White House's bully pulpit.According to a White House fact sheet, Susman is being targeted over what the White House has called its work to "weaponize the American legal system and degrade the quality of American elections."White House staff secretary Will Scharf described the Susman action as similar to Trump's previous orders targeting firms that either participated in suits against him or hired former government attorneys who worked on Trump-related litigation when the president was out of power. Some of Trump's targets have been among the biggest firms in the country, including Perkins Coie.Susman represented Dominion Voting Systems in its defamation suit against Fox News, resulting in a $787.5 settlement in 2023. Fox News, Trump allies, and other conservatives repeatedly spread unfounded rumors about Dominion's election machines in the aftermath of Trump's 2020 loss.The firm also represents Dominion in a lawsuit against Newsmax, another conservative media organization that promoted false conspiracy theories about the election technology company's role in the 2020 election. In a ruling Wednesday, moments before Trump signed the executive order, a Delaware judge ruled that Newsmax defamed Dominion and that the case could proceed to trial.The firm also represents The New York Times in the publication's copyright suit against OpenAI and Microsoft.Trump hinted that further law firm-related actions may be coming. He told reporters that "we have another five to go."So far, Paul Weiss, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP, and Milbank have all reached deals with the White House that call for hundreds of millions in pro bono legal work to advance Trump administration-supported causes.On Tuesday, a group of former Republican and Democratic government officials, represented by Susman Godfrey lawyers, filed an amicus brief in support of Perkins Coie.Perkins Coie sued the Trump administration, arguing its targeting of law firms violated the US Constitution."The Constitution did not make the President a king empowered to punish subjects arbitrarily based on animus or whim," wrote the Susman Godfrey attorneys in their brief. Recommended video

President Donald Trump beat a partial — and possibly temporary — retreat from the most radical version of his trade agenda Wednesday. One week ago, he vowed to impose massive new tariffs on virtually all imports from nearly all countries. Although rates varied by nation, many countries faced tariffs of more than 30 percent. Trump branded these duties “reciprocal tariffs,” claiming (falsely) that they mirrored foreign nations’ trade barriers to American goods. The policy triggered a stock market collapse and upended countless businesses dependent on foreign suppliers for goods or parts. For days, Trump refused to back down in the face of such economic turmoil. But on Wednesday — when the tariffs were scheduled to take effect — he changed his trade policy. In a Truth Social post, Trump announced that — for all nations besides China — he was lowering his “reciprocal” tariffs to 10 percent for the next 90 days, while he negotiated with America’s trade partners. At the same time, Trump actually escalated his trade war with China, announcing a blanket, 125 percent tariff on Chinese imports. This marked the culmination of a week-long, tit-for-tat volley of tariffs between Beijing and Washington. Now, with US imports facing an 84 percent tariff in China, more or less all trade between the world’s two greatest economic powers has ceased. Nevertheless, stock markets soared following Trump’s announcement, with the S&P 500 seeing its biggest rally in five years. This is a welcome sign for the US economy. But we aren’t out of the woods yet. Trump’s current plans may look moderate compared to the shocking radicalism of his initial “reciprocal” tariffs. But, prior to Trump’s inauguration, a 10 percent universal tariff — combined with a total decoupling of the US and Chinese economies — was widely considered the worst-case scenario. Wall Street’s burgeoning optimism for the American economy therefore depends on the assumption that Trump will continue retreating from his current position. If he instead maintains his current course, the US will face surging prices and a heightened risk of recession.Trump’s current trade policy is still more radical than Wall Street’s worst-case-scenario circa 2024During the 2024 campaign, Trump had promised to impose a 10 percent tariff on all foreign goods, and a 60 percent tariff on Chinese ones. Investors widely considered such a policy too unhinged to be serious. Future Trump Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent assured Bloomberg TV in August that the Republican candidate’s ostensible trade agenda was merely a negotiating tactic, saying, “President Trump speaks like a New York City real estate developer, and that is the opening gambit. … It is a maximalist negotiating position.” It’s worth dwelling on this quote: America’s current trade policy — a 10 percent universal tariff that could jump higher in 90 days, combined with a 125 percent tariff on China — is more radical than what Bessent deemed a maximalist negotiating position last summer. For ordinary Americans, it is also an incredibly costly policy. According to an estimate from the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a 10 percent universal tariff combined with a 60 tariff on Chinese goods would cost the typical US household “at least $1,700 in increased taxes each year.” Trump’s current agenda — which includes 125 percent tariffs on Chinese goods and 25 percent tariffs on foreign cars — would cost that household even more.And he is still planning to impose a new battery of “sectoral” tariffs soon, which are poised to increase the prices of lumber (and thus housing) and pharmaceuticals, among myriad other things. If Trump maintains his current trade policy, America’s economic pain will only mount in the coming weeks and months. But bulls on Wall Street are betting that a broader retreat is coming.Why Wall Street thinks Trump will reduce tariffs furtherIt’s important to keep Wednesday’s stock rally in context: As of this writing, the S&P 500 is roughly 7 percent lower than it was at the beginning of January. Investors still implicitly believe that Trump’s trade policies have lowered America’s growth prospects substantially. This said, if traders were certain that Trump’s current tariffs were going to remain in place, stock values would be much lower. Wall Street is heartened by the direction Trump is moving in, not the place where he presently stands. The fact that he substantially moderated his tariffs on Wednesday — before their impact on prices and jobs had been widely felt — suggests that he could cave even further, if and when economic conditions worsen. Meanwhile, Trump’s announcement on Wednesday potentially establishes a foundation for further tariff reductions. He has already pulled the universal rate down to 10 percent, and says he is looking to “negotiate a solution” to his trade concerns with 75 countries. Presumably, if he does reach such a solution with these nations, he will bring tariffs on their imports below 10 percent.Even on China, Trump’s remarks offered an opening to trade peace, as he wrote on Truth Social, “At some point, hopefully in the near future, China will realize that the days of ripping off the U.S.A., and other Countries, is no longer sustainable or acceptable.”Look at all this through rose-colored glasses, and you see a path back to the pro-business, moderately protectionist Republican presidency that Wall Street thought it was getting. America is still on the brink of an economic crisisNevertheless, Trump backing down further on tariffs is no safe bet. As he has made clear in recent days, he believes that the United States should run a trade surplus in goods with every country on the planet — and that any country that runs a trade surplus with us is ripping America off. So long as Trump maintains this belief, it is hard to see how he negotiates resolutions with America’s major trade partners. Countries cannot easily control whether they run trade surpluses with the United States, which are influenced by complex patterns of consumption and investment that governments do not dictate.What’s more, as of Tuesday, many countries were trying to start negotiations with the United States but getting no response from the Trump administration — a sign that the president’s purported interest in striking deals may not be sincere.Even if the White House is now genuinely interested in negotiations, it’s unclear what America’s top trade partners, most of whom do not actually impose wildly unfair tariffs on US products, can offer. It’s possible that Trump is comfortable with minor, face-saving concessions that he can frame as triumphs. But in recent weeks, he has repeatedly signaled more sweeping ambitions. On Monday, Trump told reporters, “You know it would be nice to serve a nice, easy term. But we have an opportunity to change the fabric of our country. We have an opportunity to reset the table on trade.”Trump cannot run for another presidential term. So it would make some sense for him to put his ideological objectives above his political interests.Regardless, Trump’s waffling will only reinforce business’s uncertainty about the trajectory of US policy. And when firms are uncertain whether their costs will imminently surge or fall, they tend to postpone investments in new factories or stores, thereby depressing economic growth.In short, as stock movements make clear, the US stepped back from the cliff’s edge. But we still aren’t far from the precipice. And it’s unclear which direction Trump intends to take us from here.See More:

Mario Kart World does look good (Nintendo) The Thursday letters page has mixed reviews for the Nintendo Switch 2 pre-order system, as one reader decides to get a Meta Quest 3 instead of a Switch 2. To join in with the discussions yourself email gamecentral@metro.co.uk Sliding scale I do love a new console launch, even and especially all the controversy over prices and pre-orders and whether it’s worth getting straight away. For me it’s a question for a new PlayStation but not really a Nintendo console. Well… there was the Wii U, but after the quality of the Switch 1 and the mostly positive Direct I’m committed to getting a Switch 2 at launch.Mario Kart World is clearly great and Donkey Kong Bananza probably too, so I have no doubts that it’ll be worth it right from the start. Things can go wrong after but that’s the same for any console, it’s just one of the risks you have to take. I’m not going in with eyes close though. The price of the games is definitely a concern but the third party games aren’t necessarily going to be that expensive and, let’s face it, Nintendo games don’t come out that often. Or at least not ones that they’re likely to charge £75 for – they’re not even doing that with Donkey Kong. I think Nintendo did make mistakes at the Direct and a big one was not saying how much the other games are. If they’d made it clear that things like Hyrule Warriors and Kirby: Air Riders are only £50 or so (they better be) then I think that would’ve helped to make things look a lot fairer. Strange to see such a veteran company make mistakes like that but, well, I already mentioned the Wii U.Tosh Robin from the poor Although I wasn’t lucky enough to receive an invite from Nintendo directly, I have to admit that I am fully supportive of their approach to Switch 2 pre-orders, and I do hope that Sony and others follow suit in the future.The invite system is a clear attempt to get consoles into the hands of their most loyal customers, rather than scalpers, and this is to be applauded. I was caught off guard by the online retailers on Friday and had a frustrating few hours trying to get orders through on various websites – well done to any ‘real’ people who got one but these systems are heavily biased towards bots and even as I was desperately trying to refresh a console into my basket I could already see that they were popping up on eBay for £650+. Now I know that for online retailers a sale is a sale, and having had a similar experience with the PlayStation 5 a few years ago, I of course have to remind myself that scalpers are just modern-day Robin Hood figures really. Or at least they would be if the version they are reading involved Robin paying a fair price to the rich for the goods he is intercepting, then offering them to the poor for twice as much. But it’s OK, because Robin does give some of the money he’s fleecing from people to charity. For the benefit of other readers, I would strongly recommend registering for updates from Currys, who along with Nintendo appear to be the exception to the free-for-all rule. Having been stuck at work last Friday, I feared the worst when I walked into the store at 9am the following morning but I was the only person there and within five minutes I’d managed to buy a Mario Kart bundle and Pro Controller with the minimum of fuss. It was a slightly anachronistic experience but entirely stress free and welcome! Going forward, I only hope that other console manufacturers and retailers are brave enough to learn from this.Dan Street Wither thou goest, Switch 2? Awful, just awful!This has happened so many times before with the Switch, then the Switch OLED, so I shouldn’t really be surprised that it’s happening again with the Switch 2! I’ve been a long-term Nintendo owner, from the barren Wii U years to the awesome Switch and Switch OLED years. I have a Nintendo Switch Online subscription with days of gameplay and I even got lucky with Switch 2 launch tickets too, but in some weird Nintendo way I didn’t get an invite from Nintendo Direct to buy one? Instead, I’ve gone elsewhere to get one. I just hope this situation isn’t going to happen with the games. When the Wii U was a flop there were almost no third party games and there weren’t enough first party games to make up the difference, leaving a withering platform.Jacob Email your comments to: gamecentral@metro.co.uk Stairway to heaven With the news of a Universal Studios theme park coming to the UK, does that mean we can expect a Nintendo World in due time?Would be a great way for Nintendo to capitalise on a chance to promote itself in one of its weaker markets. In other news, with Rainbow Road being confirmed for Mario Kart World, and the new addition of driving to the next circuit, will we be seeing some kind of escalating highway to reach the spacey heights of Rainbow Road? That would be a sight to behold as opposed to a barrel blast into space!Bad Edit Any port in a storm So, luck was on my side. Amazon has come through for me, as unfortunately I didn’t receive an invite to purchase the console from Nintendo. Still, I was very lucky indeed. As soon as I secured my pre-order it’s unavailable. That quickly it went out of stock, I’m still quite flabbergasted.I also wanted to talk about some of the ports, that are being developed for the Switch 2. I appreciate Elden Ring and Final Fantasy 7 Remake Intergrade. I’d also deeply appreciate a port release of the hardest title I’ve ever played, the legendary Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. It would drive sales further and I think it would run amazing on the hardware. We never saw a port of Dark Souls 2 or 3 for the original Switch and, for me personally, only featuring the first game was disappointing. Sekiro deserves to be featured on Nintendo’s brand and, let’s be honest, they would jump at the opportunity to feature another title that is overpriced, just as Mario and Zelda are. A match made in heaven. I’ll keep the faith and my joy at securing a pre-order intact.Shahzaib Sadiq Capricious Day I disagree with GC’s assertion that Nintendo erred by not delaying its Switch 2 Direct in light of the tariffs.First, Trump had taken a capricious approach to tariffs since January. He announced tariffs on Mexico and Canada, then delayed them after getting some minor concessions; implemented them a month later before delaying most of them again a couple of days later. Reasonable doubt, then, that ‘Liberation Day’ would actually go ahead. Also, the consensus from experts was that the tariffs were worse than expected. While the measures against China and the EU were not a surprise, those against Japan, Vietnam, and Cambodia were – and foiled Nintendo’s plans to avoid the tariffs against China. Most important is the reputational damage a delay would have caused. While America is a huge market for Nintendo, there is worldwide interest in the Switch 2. Also worldwide is a growing anti-American sentiment, due to the administration’s rhetoric towards Greenland, Gaza, Canada, and many other places. If Nintendo delayed its much-anticipated reveal due to American political machinations, they would have been judged as weak and kowtowing to America. Especially in their home country – let’s not forget that Japan has its own nationalist streak. (Just as I’m writing this, I learned that pre-orders have been delayed in Canada, too. Further proving that delaying the Direct would have been pointless as key details on pre-orders and a possible price increase are still hazy one week later.) I think Nintendo may silently be thanking Trump though, for taking some of the heat off them. If Americans suddenly have to pay $100-$150 extra for the console, the anger will be directed at him and only him.Mike GC: We’d say the reputational damage of having to delay pre-orders in North America is much worse than simply delaying the whole Direct by a day, but what’s done is done. We certainly pity the Nintendo bean counter that has to give advice on what to do now. Missing out I have had the complete opposite experience to TGN Professor. The Switch pre-order system has been a complete nightmare, I wish I had ordered from Amazon, as I usually do. The verification code sent to my email takes too long to arrive then doesn’t work. I’ve had five codes and can’t get in.Nintendo customer service’s answer was basically ‘tough, keep trying’. I wasted a whole day on it yesterday and still have no pre-order. This is one of the only Nintendo consoles I won’t have at launch. I am one very unhappy customer.Ryan O’D GC: There’s still time, stores like Argos and Amazon seem to be getting new stock in pretty regularly. Virtual upgrade Finally, the Switch 2 reveal and Direct have come to pass. This successor looks the part but I’m not quite sure whether I actually want one just yet. I tend to wait until well into a console’s lifespan before taking the plunge and I see this as being no different after the Direct. It seemed akin to a new iPhone reveal, where the differences are purely incremental.Nothing wrong with building on a proven success but it’s just not enough to warrant an early adoption. I’ll wait a few years until I’ve let everyone else put it to the test, before I decide an upgrade is worth it. There are still so many great games that I’ve yet to play on my current model. I’m in full agreement with what reader Owen Pile wrote about on Monday, in defence of high game prices compared to the cost of an activity that may only last a few hours for much the same cost. I did write in after the Batman: Arkham Shadow review, questioning whether it was worth getting a Meta Quest 3 to play it, given the price I’ve paid for a disappointing holiday. In light of what I’ve seen of the Switch 2 and the emergence of Alien: Rogue Incursion, along with existing titles like Resident Evil 4 VR and Saints & Sinners 2, I’m now almost definitely going to put the money I’d ring fenced for an impulse Switch 2 purchase towards the Meta Quest 3. My PlayStation VR needs an upgrade and upgrading to PlayStation VR2 just can’t be justified, given that I’m still using PlayStation 4 along with the fact that Sony seemed to abandon it soon after launch. I know VR isn’t for everyone but I’m very much a fan of it. I’ve started researching the Meta Quest 3 in earnest now and reviews are positive. I’d gratefully appreciate any feedback on the unit from any readers that own one, before I click on the payment button.D Dubya GC: PlayStation VR2 doesn’t work with the PlayStation 4, you’d be buying a very expensive sleep mask. Inbox also-rans Just a heads up that there’s hefty discounts on Jusant (£9), Cocoon (£12) and Gloomhaven (£15) on PSN at the moment, if you fancy playing something good without splashing too much cash.Matt (He_who_runs_away – PSN ID)GC: Jusant and Cocoon are great, we strongly recommend them. Apparently the Switch 2 Enhanced Edition games contain the game and update on the cartridge, and are native Switch 2 games.LoRd SiNn GC: We’ve tried to clarify this with Nintendo, but they won’t offer any confirmation or denial. Once there’s a definitive answer we’ll do a story on it. More Trending Email your comments to: gamecentral@metro.co.uk The small printNew Inbox updates appear every weekday morning, with special Hot Topic Inboxes at the weekend. Readers’ letters are used on merit and may be edited for length and content. You can also submit your own 500 to 600-word Reader’s Feature at any time via email or our Submit Stuff page, which if used will be shown in the next available weekend slot. You can also leave your comments below and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter. Arrow MORE: Games Inbox: Will the Nintendo Switch 2 sell out? GameCentral Sign up for exclusive analysis, latest releases, and bonus community content. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Your information will be used in line with our Privacy Policy

The Marvel Studios legend will always be King T'Challa in our hearts.

Winners of the ArchDaily China Building of the Year 2025 AwardsSave this picture!© Syam SreesylamAnother year, another successful ArchDaily China Building of the Year Awards! Once more, the award has proved to be the largest architecture prize centered around people's opinion. Crowdsourced, the most relevant projects of the year were nominated and selected by our readers.The 2025 China Building of the Year Awards is brought to you thanks to Dornbracht, renowned for leading designs for architecture, which can be found internationally in bathrooms and kitchens.This year we celebrate three projects, FUTIAN High-School Campus designed by reMIX studio won the first place. Futian High School Campus subverts the traditional convention of separating campuses from cities, breaking down boundaries and sharing resources between cities and schools. The rebuilt Futian Middle School attempts to provide a new type of campus that is "a city within a city". The Orchestra Park designed by SoBA won the second place. This community park offers spaces for viewing, leisure, and exploration, quickly becoming a favorite destination for local residents. With activities for all ages, it serves as both a natural retreat and a vibrant gathering place. Park - Tech (Zhongguancun Dongsheng Science Park Phase III) designed by SOPA won the third place. The project aims to create a "park complex" that coexists harmoniously with nature. Acting as a green link, the park provides open recreational spaces for citizens and achieves seamless integration between the city, architecture, and nature.True to its status, ArchDaily China, the most far-reaching Chinese architectural website, is and will always be a platform for all architecture enthusiasts. Curating the best in the world, thanks to the trust of architectural firms and the devotion of our readers, ArchDaily's realm keeps expanding exponentially. For that, we are grateful! 1st：FUTIAN High-School Campus / reMIX studio Save this picture!2nd：The Orchestra Park / SoBASave this picture!3rd：Park - Tech (Zhongguancun Dongsheng Science Park Phase III) / SOPA Save this picture! Image gallerySee allShow less About this author Cite: 韩爽 - HAN Shuang. "Winners of the ArchDaily China Building of the Year 2025 Awards" 09 Apr 2025. ArchDaily. Accessed . <https://www.archdaily.com/1028925/winners-of-the-archdaily-china-building-of-the-year-2025-awards&gt ISSN 0719-8884Save想阅读文章的中文版本吗?2025 ArchDaily 中国年度建筑大奖揭晓！是否 You've started following your first account!Did you know?You'll now receive updates based on what you follow! Personalize your stream and start following your favorite authors, offices and users.Go to my stream

Our dogs love the outdoors, but the outdoors don’t love our dogs. A review of previously published studies, released in Pacific Conservation Biology, has found that pet dogs have a number of negative effects on the environment, from their disruption of wildlife to their contribution to the problems of pollution and climate change. “Many owners simply don’t [realize] the environmental damage dogs can cause, from disturbing wildlife to polluting ecosystems,” said Bill Bateman, a review author and a behavioral ecologist at Curtin University in Australia, according to a press release. “However, the sheer number of pet dogs globally, combined with uninformed or lax [behaviors] by some owners, is driving environmental issues that we can no longer ignore.”The Environmental Effects of DogsThere are around 1 billion dogs in the world today, and the benefits they bring are innumerable. From the companionship they offer to the mental and physical health improvements they provide, dogs make our lives better. But despite our love for them, they don’t typically make the lives of wild animals better — they typically make them worse — as dogs tend to disrupt wildlife both when they’re around and when they’re not.When they’re outside, dogs bark and chase after animals, and when they’re indoors, they leave their traces behind, the review revealed. “Dogs leave scents, urine and [feces], which can disrupt animal [behavior] long after the dogs have left,” Bateman said in the release.Especially affected by the behaviors and the traces of our dogs are shorebirds, but other animals are impacted, too. “Studies have found that animals like deer, foxes, and bobcats in the [U.S.] are less active or completely avoid areas where dogs are regularly walked, even in the absence of the dogs,” Bateman added in the release.In addition to their effects on wildlife, pet dogs also add to the problems of pollution and climate change, the review found. “Dog waste also contributes to pollution in waterways and inhibits plant growth, while wash-off from chemical treatments used to clean and guard dogs from parasites can add toxic compounds to aquatic environments,” Bateman said in the release. “In addition, the pet food industry, driven by a vast global dog population, has a substantial carbon, land, and water footprint.”Diminishing Your Dog’s TollThese environmental burdens aren’t enough to ditch dog ownership entirely — and what could be? “Dogs are incredibly important to people’s lives, and their roles range from providing companionship to contributing to conservation efforts as detection dogs,” Bateman said in the release. However, the burdens are enough to warrant changes in the behaviors of individual dog owners. In fact, there are things that you can do to reduce the environmental toll of your dog, and they’re relatively easy to implement. For instance, cleaning up after your dog can limit its disruption of wildlife, its pollution of waterways, and its inhibition of plant growth, while purchasing environmentally friendly dog food can curb the industry’s environmental footprint, restricting its contributions to climate change. Some people “may feel their individual actions won’t make a difference, leading to a ‘tragedy of the commons’ where shared spaces like beaches and woodlands suffer cumulative degradation,” Bateman said in the release. However, they should recognize that their individual actions do matter, mitigating the negative environmental effects of their beloved pets.Another way to reduce your dog’s toll is to follow all rules or restrictions about where dogs are and aren’t allowed. “Restrictive measures such as banning dogs from sensitive areas are necessary for protecting vulnerable species,” Bateman said in the release, “but they are not a complete solution.” Indeed, those bans aren’t enough to tackle dog ownership’s effects on the environment on their own, especially if dog owners tend to ignore them. According to Bateman, we will only lower the environmental effects of our dogs by working together. “We are calling for a collaborative effort between dog owners, conservation groups, and policymakers to develop strategies that balance pet ownership with environmental care,” he said in the release. Though the solution will take effort, it will be worth the work, limiting the damage done by our best and furriest friends.Read More: How Dogs Can Benefit Your Mental HealthArticle SourcesOur writers at Discovermagazine.com use peer-reviewed studies and high-quality sources for our articles, and our editors review for scientific accuracy and editorial standards. Review the sources used below for this article:Pacific Conservation Biology. Bad Dog? The Environmental Effects of Owned DogsIntegrative and Comparative Biology. Dogs as Pets and Pests: Global Patterns of Canine Abundance, Activity, and HealthSam Walters is a journalist covering archaeology, paleontology, ecology, and evolution for Discover, along with an assortment of other topics. Before joining the Discover team as an assistant editor in 2022, Sam studied journalism at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.

Prehistoric stone tool cores that were made by humans around the end of the last ice age. CREDIT: Sara Watson. Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 A team of archeologists in South Africa had to climb to new heights to find an important set of tools made by humans about 20,000 years ago. These newly discovered stone tools were embedded in a cave overlooking the country’s southern coast. “The site itself is 23 meters [75.4 feet] above sea level, which we have to climb up there every day to get up to the site,” archeologist Sara Watson tells Popular Science. “It makes it hard to get up to now, but that’s also one of the things that has helped preserve it over so long.” Watson and the team had to very carefully climb up with about 50 pounds of added weight from excavation and photography equipment. However, this physical challenge and painstaking excavation was worth it. The tools offer exciting new clues to how people living in the area thousands of years ago may have lived and interacted. Their findings are described in a study published April 9 in the Journal of Paleolithic Archaeology. Archaeologists climbing up the cliffside to the cave site. CREDIT: Sara Watson. Into the Pleistocene The blades recovered from the cave were made between 24,000 and 12,000 years ago. At this time, Earth was nearing the end of the last major ice age.  “The Pleistocene was actually a very, very different world from what we see today. It’s only been in the last 10,000 years or so that we’ve experienced such a relatively stable, warm, and relatively pleasant climate that made things like agriculture and what I like to call ‘Big C Civilization’ possible,” says Watson. During the Pleistocene, our ancestors lived through several different ice ages. However, the blocks of time between ice ages–called an interglacial period–also were not that warm.   “So the climate did all sorts of crazy leaps and bounds and shifts all over the place, sandwiched in between two major ice ages,” says Watson.  Those changes are evidence in the rocks where these new tools were found. When most of our planet’s water was frozen in glaciers about  24,000 and 12,000 years ago, the sea level was much lower in many places around the world. These caves in South Africa were not sitting above the coast perched above a rocky beach, but were a few miles inland instead. This land was also likely full of open plains and large game, similar to the modern-day Serengeti ecosystem in Tanzania.  “People hunted those animals, and to do that, they developed new tools and weapons,” says Watson. The team used tiny dental tools to remove each layer of sediment and dust and ended up finding thousands of small, sharp blades and the larger pieces of rock from which these blades were chipped. While it is difficult to say what the stones may have been specifically used for there are some theories.  “They may have been a component in composite tools and projectile weapons, so things like bows and arrows,” says Watson. “Since the site was 75 kilometers [46 miles] inland during the time period I was looking at it, these were open plains that would have been able to support large herds of migratory animals.” An array of stone tools, and a toothbrush used to excavate them. CREDIT: Sara Watson. Additionally, the team saw several distinct patterns of how the cores on these tools had been broken into smaller blades.  “In a lot of these technologies, the core reduction is very specific, and it’s something that you are taught and learn, and that’s where the social information is,” says Watson. “If we see specific methods of core reduction at multiple sites across the landscape, as an archaeologist, it tells me that these people were sharing ideas with one another.” Knowledge sharing One particular method of breaking tiny bladelets off of a core has also been seen hundreds of miles away in present-day Namibia and Lesotho. These patterns were repeated over and over and indicate international and shared information instead of just a chance similarity. “Finding the same tools and the same methods used to make these tools across this entire country, suggests that people were connecting with each other over long distances,” says Watson. “We actually think the site may have been used a little bit differently, too. Rather than people living at the site full time, it’s possible that this may have been more of a temporary camp.”  While there are still numerous questions remaining about the people who lived in these caves thousands of years ago, they were not really all that different from us. “We have a very long and rich history as a species, and humans go back a lot farther in time than most people realize,” says Watson. “People living around the last ice age were very similar to people today.”

Nature, Published online: 09 April 2025; doi:10.1038/d41586-025-00965-9Finding an effective treatment for insomnia is one thing — getting an insurance company to pay for it is another, says Rachel Nuwer.