South Africa beat Bangladesh by 4 runs: T20 World Cup 2024 – as it happened..
South Africa edge Bangladesh by 4 runs in last over thriller..
Najmul Hossain Shanto of Bangladesh makes his way off after being dismissed during the ICC Men’s T20 Cricket World Cup West Indies & USA 2024 match between South Africa and Bangladesh at Nassau County International Cricket Stadium on 10 June, 2024 in New York.
South Africa defeated Bangladesh by just four runs in another low-scoring game at the T20 World Cup on Monday, a result likely to spark fresh debate over the suitability of the pitch being used in New York.
South Africa were restricted to 113-6 in their 20 overs with Heinrich Klaasen top-scoring on 46 while fast bowler Tanzim Hasan Sakib returned a career-best 3-18.
However, Bangladesh could only manage 109-7 in reply as South Africa wrapped up a third win in three Group D games.
Chasing a modest target of 114 on the controversial drop-in pitch at Nassau County International Cricket Stadium, Bangladesh initially found themselves in a tough spot against South Africa's formidable pace attack.
Their innings started shakily, reaching 50-4 by the 10-over mark. Kagiso Rabada claimed Tanzid Hasan's wicket for just nine runs, while Anrich Nortje dismissed skipper Najmul Hossain Shanto (14) and Shakib Al Hasan (three). Spinner Keshav Maharaj added to their woes by sending Liton Das back to the pavilion for a mere nine runs.
However, Towhid Hridoy, who had previously top-scored with 40 in Bangladesh's victory over Sri Lanka, and the experienced Mahmudullah stabilized the innings. Together, they forged a crucial 44-run partnership for the fifth wicket. Hridoy's knock of 37, featuring two fours and two sixes off 34 balls, ended when he fell lbw to Rabada.
With the pressure mounting, Bangladesh managed to take seven runs off the penultimate over but still required 11 off the final over bowled by Maharaj. The chase boiled down to seven runs needed from four balls. Under intense pressure, both Jaker Ali and Mahmudullah attempted big shots but were caught in the deep.
Requiring six runs off the final delivery, Taskin Ahmed could only muster a single, falling short of the target.
Earlier, Bangladesh's bowlers restricted South Africa to 113-6 after Proteas skipper Aiden Markram elected to bat first. Tanzim and Taskin led the bowling attack, with Taskin claiming 2-19. South Africa found themselves struggling at 23-4 before Heinrich Klaasen and David Miller staged a rescue effort, stitching together a crucial 79-run partnership for the fifth wicket.
Klaasen's aggressive 46 off 44 balls, supported by Miller's 29 off 38 deliveries, propelled South Africa to a competitive total. Despite the late flourish, South Africa's innings was marred by a collapse early on, triggered by Tanzim's early breakthroughs.
Overall, Bangladesh's valiant effort fell just short, as South Africa emerged victorious in a thrilling encounter.
Signed Manic Street Preachers guitar and Tom Jones tickets up for grabs at charity auction!
Get ready for an exciting charity auction happening right in the heart of Wrexham! On June 14th, Llangollen Town Hall will be buzzing with excitement as over 20 fantastic items go under the hammer, all in support of the Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod.
Among the treasures up for grabs, you'll find a coveted signed guitar from the Manic Street Preachers, a chance to see the legendary Tom Jones and Bryan Adams live in concert, and even a Leeds United shirt autographed by four Wales International Footballers.
But that's not all! The evening promises delightful entertainment from Côr Daw, a unique Welsh choir that delights audiences with spirited renditions of classic hits by Queen, Abba, Elton John, Michael Jackson, and more – all sung in Welsh! Formed in 2011 by Pam Evans-Hughes, Côr DAW has captivated crowds at prestigious venues across Wales and beyond.
Tickets for this unforgettable evening are available now at Llangollen TIC for just £5, and the festivities kick off at 7:30 pm. Plus, don't miss out on the chance to win big with our tombola!
All proceeds from the auction will support the Llangollen Eisteddfod's charitable endeavors, bringing people from around the world together for its annual Peace Festival. So mark your calendars, gather your friends, and join us for a night of music, excitement, and giving back to the community. See you there!
Live coverage: SpaceX to launch its Starship rocket on its fourth test flight.
SpaceX restacked its nearly 400-foot-tall Starship rocket on Wednesday, June 5, 2024, in anticipation of launching it on the fourth test flight of the program the following day. Image: Michael Cain/Spaceflight Now
Update 7:07 a.m. EDT: SpaceX adjusted the T-0 liftoff time of the mission.
For a fourth time in a little
more than a year, SpaceX is preparing to launch a test mission of its massive Starship rocket from its development facility in southern Texas called Starbase. The launch, dubbed Flight 4, will push the launch vehicle towards its goal of being a mostly reusable rocket.
Similarly to the previous three launches, Flight 4 will not include a payload and will fly a suborbital trajectory. Liftoff is set for 7:50 a.m. CDT (8:50 a.m. EDT, 1250 UTC), near the opening of a 120-minute window.
Spaceflight Now will have joint live coverage alongside Lab Padre beginning at 7:00 a.m. EDT (1100 UTC).
Onboard cameras on the Starship upper stage flown during Flight 3 (Starship IFT-3) show the vehicle surrounded by plasma as it reenters the atmosphere on March 14, 2024. Image: SpaceX
Meanwhile, the Super Heavy Booster from the last flight also prematurely shut down six out of 13 Raptor engines used during the boostback burn, which remained offline when it attempted to perform a landing burn.
“The booster had lower than expected landing burn thrust when contact was lost at approximately 462 meters in altitude over the Gulf of Mexico and just under seven minutes into the mission,” SpaceX stated. “The most likely root cause for the early boostback burn shutdown was determined to be continued filter blockage where liquid oxygen is supplied to the engines, leading to a loss of inlet pressure in engine oxygen turbopumps.”
“Super Heavy boosters for Flight 4 and beyond will get additional hardware inside oxygen tanks to further improve propellant filtration capabilities.”
Eyes on the Moon
The forthcoming Flight 4 is an important mission not only for SpaceX, but also for NASA. The rocket will take center stage when the agency embarks on the Artemis 3 mission, which is currently targeting September 2026.
Lisa Watson-Morgan, the manager of the Human Landing System program, and her team continue to work alongside SpaceX to understand the development of the rocket that will serve as the Moon lander for the yet-to-be-named astronauts of the Artemis 3 and Artemis 4 missions.
“It was great to see the lessons that came out of [flights] one and two and to see how that was employed either through manufacturing, production, through operations of how Flight 3 was conducted,” Watson-Morgan said. “There weren’t any issues around Raptor. No fires and a lot of good consistency, frankly, around the engines. When you get all those engines to light up, for us, it was a significant win.”
She noted that while the Raptor relight on the upper stage during Flight 3 wasn’t able to be accomplished, there’s still plenty of time to achieve that milestone. Watson-Morgan said they would need to see it demonstrated either in the back half of 2024 or in early 2025.
“As SpaceX continues to mature their Raptors, because they’re working through their design and development, as they do that, they’re making modifications and adjustments and changes,” Watson-Morgan said. “And all of that’s getting incorporated into an updated build sequence.”
Artist’s illustration of the Starship landing system on the moon. Credit: SpaceX
One of the successes that Watson-Morgan and NASA took note of was the propellant transfer, which shifted liquid oxygen (LOX) from the ship’s header tank to the main upper stage LOX tank. That was designed to fulfill a $53.2 million Tipping Point contract with NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD), which had a requirement to demonstrate the transfer of 10 metric tons of propellant.
Watson-Morgan said that while the HLS office was not directly involved with that, representatives from STMD echoed the opinion of SpaceX in that it was a successful demo. It’s the first step in being able to conduct a ship-to-ship propellant transfer, one of the main components of the SpaceX mission for Artemis moon landings.
SpaceX’s concept is to launch a tanker version of the ship upper stage into low Earth orbit. They would then launch a series of ships to dock with the tanker and transfer propellant into it, which would in turn, shift that over to the HLS version of Starship before it heads off to the Moon.
“Prop transfer is really the key to the portal to the rest of the universe. It genuinely is. It’s the key to Mars, it’s the key to the South Pole and really, that is our long pole and we’re doing all we can to get ready for that, to help SpaceX with that,” Watson-Morgan said. “In addition, we’re doing all we can to help Blue Origin with it because they have that as well in their concept.”
The number of fueling flights heading up to the tanker doesn’t have a hard and fast number at this point, Watson-Morgan said, because it’s not entirely clear how much propellant needs to be transferred.
“It’s contingent on the six of the tanks. It’s contingent on how much how much do we want to transfer. It’s contingent on what all are the other objectives that we want to prove out and how long do we want to make the demonstration of the flight test?” Watson-Morgan said. “And so, it could be just a couple and it could be more than a couple. And so, it all depends on our objectives.”
“One thing that I appreciate much about SpaceX is that they are willing to be open and fluid with objectives and open to more objectives, if NASA believes we need them, depending on the timing.”
Two Starships linked together in space for in-orbit refilling. Credit: SpaceX
While she was limited on what she could say about it, Watson-Morgan also mentioned that SpaceX is developing a smaller thruster-style engine to help with the prop transfer demonstration. She said a development milestone on that is coming up later this year.
“Our team has been very impressed. They’ve developed this engine within less than half a year and it’s, so far, been performing well,” she said.
Starship expansion
Part of the timing for the propellant transfer will hinge on being able to launch multiple Starship missions from more than the one launch tower SpaceX currently has. The company is in the process of building a second tower down at Starbase.
To that end, they manufactured additional segments and components at their facilities at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida and have barged them down to Texas. A collection of four tower segments shipped earlier this year and this week, they loaded two more segments onto the barge, along with the tower’s so-called “chopsticks” and their elevator system supports.
Watson-Morgan said the propellant transfer mission could be conducted from two towers at Starbase, but NASA is very interested in making sure that Starship launch capabilities come online at KSC as well. Next week, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) will host public scoping meetings to gather input on allowing around 44 Starship launches per year from historic Launch Complex 39A.
A Starship tower segment along with the chopstick elevator system rolls to the turn basin near the Press Site at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on Saturday, June 1, 2024. The components were some of the cargo bound for Starbase in southern Texas to erect a second launch tower. Image: Will Robinson-Smith/Spaceflight Now
Simultaneously, the Department of the Air Force is also doing a similar assessment for Starship launches from either Space Launch Complex 37, which is the former launch site of United Launch Alliance’s (ULA) Delta 4 Heavy rocket, or from a proposed new launch pad called SLC-50.
“We definitely want to see that. We have to see it by the uncrewed demo for sure and clearly, we’d like to see that before to make sure that everything checks out,” Watson-Morgan said. “We will go ahead and have pad checkouts and all that and operational readiness reviews in advance of it.”
Part of SpaceX’s HLS agreement with NASA is that it will perform an uncrewed landing of Starship on the Moon prior to the Artemis 3 mission.
Humans in loop
As they’re developing the human-rated version of Starship, they’re also gathering input from Astronaut Office, which is located at NASA’s Johnson Space Center. Watson-Morgan, referring to them as “the crew” for shorthand, said the office offers insight and opinions on the functionality of certain parts of the vehicle, like interface, control system and location of handles.
She said the HLS office mainly works with astronauts Raja Chari and Randy Bresnik, the latter of whom has been a part of the process “since the very beginning.” Watson-Morgan said that they also have members of the astronaut office on their control board.
“We have a Human Landing System control board, where any requirements changes or updates or how things are implemented get to go through their formal board actions and the crew’s a voting member,” she said.
On April 30, at the SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California, NASA astronaut Doug “Wheels” Wheelock and Axiom Space astronaut Peggy Whitson performed the first integrated test of Axiom’s pressurized spacesuits alongside mockups of a Starship elevator and the airlock.
“Overall, I was pleased with the astronauts’ operation of the control panel and with their ability to perform the difficult tasks they will have to do before stepping onto the Moon,” said Logan Kennedy, lead for surface activities in NASA’s HLS Program, in a statement. “The test also confirmed that the amount of space available in the airlock, on the deck, and in the elevator, are sufficient for the work our astronauts plan to do.”
Astronauts were fully suited while conducting mission-like maneuvers in the full-scale build of the Starship human landing system’s airlock which will be located inside Starship under the crew cabin. Image: SpaceX
Shorter turnaround?
Through the Starship test campaign, SpaceX achieve shorter and shorter turnaround times between launches. That’s partly due to accomplishing more each time in a less destructive way, but also thanks to work being doing by the FAA.
Flight 2 came just 212 days after Flight 1, Flight 3 was 117 days after Flight 2 and Flight 4 comes just 84 days after Flight 3. Watson-Morgan said her understanding is that SpaceX would like to reach a monthly launch cadence at Starbase, but knows that they’ll want to infuse the learning of previous flights into successive ones, which may take more time.
“Even if it’s every two to three months, that’s still quite an achievement for a test campaign and each one of these tests will buy down different risks,” Watson-Morgan said. “For a NASA standpoint, seeing each one of those launches, we’ll get a little deeper insight into how all the engines act, how they’re performing, with respect to the ISP (specific impulse) and so, we will have that.”
SpaceX’s Starship rocket stands fully stacked ahead of Flight 4, set for launch on June 6, 2024. Image: Michael Cain/Spaceflight Now
In its approval of the launch license modification allowing for Flight 4, the FAA said that SpaceX gave it three scenarios for Starship entry at the end of the mission “that would not require an investigation in the event of the loss of the vehicle.”
“The FAA approved the scenarios as test induced damage exceptions after evaluating them as part of the flight safety and flight hazard analyses and confirming they met public safety requirements,” the agency said in a statement. “If a different anomaly occurs with the Starship vehicle an investigation may be warranted as well as if an anomaly occurs with the Super Heavy booster rocket.”
That language, coupled with a good performance of Flight 4 could open the door for a much faster announcement of a Flight 5 mission.
PSG people made me unhappy before Real Madrid move - Mbappé..
The 25-year-old added that the Parisian club told him that he wouldn't play at all in the season that has just concluded until he was "saved" by the club's manager Luis Enrique and sporting director Luis Campos.
Mbappé said: "They [the club] made me understand that I wouldn't play, they told me to my face, they told me violently.
"Luis Enrique and Luis Campos saved me. I wouldn't have set foot on the pitch again without them.
"Just the fact I was playing was a great source of pride, but it's certain that next year I won't be satisfied with a year like that."
Mbappé and France take on Luxembourg on Wednesday before facing Canada in their final warmup for Euro 2024.
Biden Walks difficult tightrope as SON's gun Trial begins..
Ahead of opening statements in Hunter Biden’s gun possession trial, which are expected on Tuesday, his father released a statement that illustrated the fine line he is trying to walk in the midst of his re-election campaign.
“I am the president, but I am also a dad,” said President Joe Biden as jury selection began on Monday.
His statement went on to express support for his son, who could face up to 25 years in prison for allegedly lying about his drug addiction when filling out background documents for a 2018 handgun purchase.
“As president, I don’t and won’t comment on pending federal cases,” he continued. “But as a dad, I have boundless love for my son, confidence in him and respect for his strength.”
Hunter Biden’s struggles with drug addiction are common knowledge at this point. He has discussed them publicly and written about them in his memoir - revelations that will soon act as evidence in his trial and fodder for public consumption.
Joe Biden has previously publicly addressed his son’s tumultuous personal life. In the first presidential debate with Donald Trump in 2020, he said he was “proud” of his only surviving son.
“My son, like a lot of people you know at home, had a drug problem,” he said. “He’s overtaken it. He’s fixed it. He’s worked on it.”
Four years ago, President Biden was responding to Trump’s attacks on the debate stage. Now, however, his statement could be an attempt to defuse what is shaping up to be a politically fraught moment, where his son’s troubled past - and, by extension, that of the entire Biden family - will be on full display.
Hunter Biden’s ex-wife, Kathleen Buhle, is expected to testify about her former husband’s drug habit. Hallie Biden, the widow of Hunter Biden’s brother Beau - with whom Hunter would later be romantically involved and who discarded the handgun in question in a Delaware bin - is also on the prosecution’s list of witnesses.
“It’s definitely not a good look,” says Kate Andersen Brower, who has written several books on US presidents, their families and first ladies. She says presidents have had to deal with family turmoil in the past. Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter faced sibling embarrassments, for instance.
For a president’s child to face a criminal trial is completely unprecedented, however, and it has left the elder Biden walking a tightrope.
He spent time with his son in Delaware this weekend, and he stayed in Wilmington - where the trial will take place - on Sunday night. During jury selection on Monday, the Biden family was well represented.
But the president had already returned to Washington by then. While he has noted his support for his son, he is also keeping his distance from the case itself.
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But First Lady Jill Biden attended and sat behind Hunter. The two embraced during a morning break in court proceedings and again after the day concluded. She was joined by Hunter’s current wife, Melissa Cohen Biden - who held his hand as he walked out of court - and his half-sister, Ashley Biden, and her husband.
Jill Biden married the president after his first wife, Hunter Biden’s mother, died in a 1972 car accident in which Hunter and Beau were injured. The accident also took the life of their infant sister, Naomi.
The president regularly speaks about the closeness of his family - and has made this devotion part of his political identity.
He talks about how he would take the train home from Washington to Delaware each night as a US senator so he could say goodnight to his children. He wrote a book about dealing with grief following Beau Biden’s death from brain cancer in 2016 and has discussed the emotional trauma he experienced in the aftermath of his first wife’s passing.
Now, the more tawdry aspects of the Biden family story will be on public display, such as text messages between Hunter Biden and his family - including intimate communication with Beau’s widow.
There will also be photographs and other details of Hunter Biden’s crack cocaine use. Some of that was likely gleaned from a laptop computer, whose existence and contents became a controversial part of the final days of the 2020 presidential election.
The Hunter Biden trial comes on the heels of one of the biggest stories of the 2024 presidential election so far – Trump’s conviction on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. While the two cases are substantially different - charges against a candidate versus a candidate’s son - the rhythm of the two trials will unavoidably lead to comparisons.
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Trump outside
At the very least, the attention focused on the Biden family drama, and Hunter Biden’s legal troubles, will shift the media focus from Trump. And the legal issues surrounding his son could make Mr Biden more reluctant to lean in to attacks on Trump’s criminal conviction.
It may also be a significant distraction for the president heading into the last campaign of his political career.
“It’s going to be very difficult on a personal level for Biden,” Brower says. “He has experience trying to wall off his personal life from his public life, but it’s his only living son. It’s got to be very taxing.”
There’s another way Hunter Biden’s legal drama differs from Trump’s. The former president's three other criminal cases will probably not happen before November’s election.
Hunter Biden, however, is also under indictment on federal tax charges, with a trial scheduled for September.
That case, dealing with an alleged failure to pay at least $1.4m in taxes over four years, might be more politically damaging for the president, given that it involves financial crimes rather than ones connected to his drug addiction.
“Tax evasion is much harder to make excuses about,” says Brower.
If Hunter Biden is convicted in either federal trial, it is within his father’s presidential power to pardon him.
Such a move would have been politically toxic in the past, but Trump exercised his pardon authority for a slew of controversial figures who worked for him and seems to have paid little price for it.
While that is an action that Joe Biden the dad might find appealing - he has insisted his son is innocent - the White House has said it is not under consideration.
