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Suborbital space tourism finally arrives | FCC prepares to run public C-band auction | The big four in the U.S. launch industry — United Launch Alliance, SpaceX, Blue Origin and Northrop Grumman — hope to be one of two providers that will receive five-year contracts later this year to launch national security payloads starting in 2022. | China’s launch rate stays high | The International Space Station is the largest ever crewed object in space.

 
Paris couture season kicks off with frivolity,...
PARIS (AP) — Schiaparelli kicked off haute couture season Monday with plenty of glamorous frivolity and exaggerated silhouettes ahead of the highly anticipated show by powerhouse Christian Dior. SCHIAPARELLI Schiaparelli also offered surreal takes on classics harking back to the 1930s heyday of house founder Elsa Schiaparelli. The mood at the first spring-summer couture show of the season was enlivened by gold accents and intricate embellishments in front of a a slew of VIPs inside the gilded atrium of...

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Buyers rejoice? Most pandemic-era homebuyers say they...
The D.C. housing market, along with most of the rest of the nation, is settling into a more normal market now. But a new survey finds homebuyers who bought during the pandemic, especially in the two years leading up to last summer when the market began to cool, don’t have buyer’s remorse. Buyers went to extraordinary lengths to buy homes during the pandemic: making offers on multiple homes; paying well over list price to get the contract; and digging...

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South Dakota tribe: Storm deaths ‘could have...
Honor Beauvais’ every breath was a battle as a snowstorm battered the Rosebud Sioux Reservation in South Dakota. The asthmatic 12-year-old’s worried aunt and uncle begged for help clearing a path to their cattle ranch near the community of Two Strike as his condition worsened, his fragile lungs fighting a massive infection. But when an ambulance finally managed to get through, Honor’s uncle already was performing CPR, said his grandmother, Rose Cordier-Beauvais. Honor, whose Lakota name is Yuonihan Ihanble,...

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Obnoxiously loud car? A traffic camera might...
NEW YORK (AP) — After the relative quiet of the pandemic, New York City has come roaring back. Just listen: Jackhammers. Honking cars and trucks. Rumbling subway trains. Sirens. Shouting. Over the years, there have been numerous efforts to quiet the cacophony. One of the latest: traffic cameras equipped with sound meters capable of identifying souped-up cars and motorbikes emitting an illegal amount of street noise. At least 71 drivers have gotten tickets so far for violating noise rules...

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New this week: Lukas Graham, ‘That 90’s...
Here’s a collection curated by The Associated Press’ entertainment journalists of what’s arriving on TV, streaming services and music and video game platforms this week. MOVIES — ”Train to Busan” and “Hellbound” director Yeon Sang-Ho has a new sci-fi action pic arriving on Netflix on Friday. In the dystopian future of “Jung_E,” Earth has become uninhabitable, and war is about to break out in the shelter, where one side figures out how to clone a famous mercenary into a...

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How (and where) to watch the AP...
Glittering rock ‘n’ roll, women warriors and kings, spellbinding multiverses and stories of friendship and family permeated 2022 cinema and the AP Top 25 Movies list. Some of last year’s best films, as determined by our panel of 26 journalists from across the U.S., are still in theaters — but many are also available online to stream now. Here’s where you can find the movies: 1. “THE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN” HBO Max. Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson and Kerry Condon...

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US Treasury buys time for Biden and...
WASHINGTON (AP) — The countdown toward a possible U.S. government default began Thursday with Treasury implementing accounting measures as a stopgap, while frictions between President Joe Biden and House Republicans raise alarms about whether the U.S. can sidestep a potential economic crisis. The Treasury Department said in a letter to congressional leaders it has started taking “extraordinary measures” as the government has run up against its legal borrowing capacity of $31.381 trillion. An artificially imposed cap, the debt ceiling...

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Elon Musk depicted as liar, visionary in...
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Elon Musk was depicted Wednesday as either a liar who callously jeopardized the savings of “regular people” or a well-intentioned visionary as attorneys delivered opening statements at a trial focused on a Tesla buyout that never happened. Lawyers on opposing sides drew the starkly different portraits of Musk for a nine-person jury that will hear the three-week trial. The case is focused on two August 2018 tweets that the billionaire posted on Twitter, which he...

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76ers, Devils owners buy into Ripken, Cooperstown...
Cal Ripken and Cooperstown are connected again. Ripken’s eponymous tournaments for youth baseball players have merged with Cooperstown All Star Village under a new agreement with the owners of the Philadelphia 76ers and New Jersey Devils. Josh Harris and David Blitzer have become majority investors in the deal announced Wednesday that merged two of the leading youth baseball brands that combined to host more 15,000 teams and 250,000 participants last year. The Ripken Experience operates in Maryland, South Carolina...

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In Paris, Bulls and Pistons enjoy sights,...
PARIS (AP) — Detroit guard Rodney McGruder had never experienced anything like this. He walked into the foyer of the Paris Opera House, then stopped and looked up to stare in silence at artwork dating back to the 19th century. Finally, he spoke. “This is something else,” McGruder said. “This is incredible.” Such was precisely the reaction that the Pistons wanted their players to have on this trip. The Pistons and Chicago Bulls are facing off in Paris on...

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Shapiro to become 48th Pa. governor, stress...
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Democrat Josh Shapiro will become the 48th governor of Pennsylvania at Tuesday’s inaugural ceremony at the state Capitol, taking the oath of office on a cold winter day in the nation’s fifth-most populous state on the heels of his blowout win in November’s election. Shapiro, 49, will come into office with more experience in state government than any of his recent predecessors, including eight years as a state lawmaker and six as the state’s elected...

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South Korea president, in UAE, backs return...
ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol said Monday that his nation’s efforts to be carbon neutral by 2050 would rely in part on returning to nuclear power, even though his predecessor had tried to move away from atomic power. Yoon’s comments at a summit in the United Arab Emirates, made in front of the country’s leader, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, served to underline Seoul’s commitment to nuclear power as it...

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Stars beat Golden Knights 4-0 in DeBoer’s...
LAS VEGAS (AP) — Dallas coach Pete DeBoer promised his team Sunday night to down a Bud Light if the Stars won the next day. The Stars knew what Monday’s game meant to DeBoer — his first back in Vegas since being fired by the Golden Knights. And after the 4-0 victory behind Jake Oettinger’s 27 saves, DeBoer also knew he had to follow through on his promise. “We have a little bit of a thing in our dressing...

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Italian film legend Gina Lollobrigida dies at...
ROME (AP) — Italian film legend Gina Lollobrigida, who achieved international stardom during the 1950s and was dubbed “the most beautiful woman in the world” after the title of one of her movies, died in Rome on Monday, her agent said. She was 95. The agent, Paola Comin, didn’t provide details. Lollobrigida had surgery in September to repair a thigh bone broken in a fall. She returned home and said she had quickly resumed walking. A drawn portrait of...

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DC companies appear to be downsizing —...
The District has an empty office problem — and it is getting worse. District-wide, the commercial vacancy rate among office buildings reached 18.9% in the fourth quarter, the highest in at least 40 years. Companies that are signing new leases are downsizing. Of the 100 office leases signed in D.C. last quarter, 19 were for large blocks of space — 50,000 square feet or more — according to commercial real estate services firm JLL. The average size of a...

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