Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. A US astronaut aboard the International Space Station (ISS) recently caught a glimpse of one of Earth's least understood atmospheric phenomena. While orbiting in the early hours of July 3, Nichole "Vapor" Ayers snapped a photo of a transient luminous event, as she passed over North America. Better known as a sprite, these atmospheric events are common after a lightning strike. Wow," Ayers posted to social media later that day along with the stunning picture.

A senior United States envoy has praised the Lebanese government's response to a US proposal aimed at disarming Hezbollah amid Israel's continued military presence in the country. Thomas Barrack, an adviser to US President Donald Trump who serves as Washington's ambassador to Turkiye and special envoy for Syria, returned to Beirut on Monday after delivering the US proposal during a June 19 visit. The plan called for the Shia Lebanese group Hezbollah to fully disarm within four months in exchange for a halt to Israeli air strikes and the full withdrawal of Israel's military from the five positions it continues to occupy in southern Lebanon. "What the government gave us was something spectacular in a very short period of time," Barrack told reporters on Monday after meeting Lebanese President Joseph Aoun. "I'm unbelievably satisfied with the response." While Barrack confirmed that he had received a seven-page reply from the Lebanese side, he offered no details on its contents.

A terrifying new scam is sweeping across the US, catching people off guard with fake threats of arrest and demands for payment. The FBI issued a warning about criminals impersonating federal officials in phone calls targeting potential victims. In some cases, callers falsely claim a victim's Social Security number is frozen or that a loved one must pay for GPS monitoring to be released from jail, creating a false sense of urgency. The scam relies on phone number spoofing technology, which falsifies caller ID to make it appear as though the call is coming from trusted government agencies. Federal agents say scammers are demanding thousands of dollars in payment via prepaid gift cards, wire transfers, or cryptocurrency ATMs.

Does artificial intelligence (AI) make working life easier or complicated? Experts suggest the answer depends on the context. In a recent IDC-hosted interview, SIAC CEO Toni Townes-Whitley described AI as the ultimate weapon against system complexity, noting that her company is employing AI to reduce tech complexity in some of the most complex technology environments on the planet -- within the US Department of Defense. Also: Amazon's Andy Jassy says AI will take some jobs but make others more'interesting' Her team has been able to reduce mission planning and other operational functions at the department from "hours to minutes," she said. AI can have the same impact in commercial businesses, "reducing time and toil for business development, proposal development, searching, and creating new documents and content."

Elon Musk isn't done with politics just yet. Days after the SpaceX and Tesla CEO threatened to form his own political party as an alternative to America's "Democrat-Republican uniparty," Musk has announced his pledge to do so. "Today, the America Party is formed to give you back your freedom," Musk wrote in a July 5 post on X. "The way we're going to crack the uniparty system is by using a variant of how Epaminondas shattered the myth of Spartan invincibility at Leuctra: Extremely concentrated force at a precise location on the battlefield." Following a rift between him and President Donald Trump that saw Musk unceremoniously severed from his "Department of Government Efficiency," the former top campaign funder became a vocal opponent to the Trump Administration's 900-page "One, Big, Beautiful bill," which was recently signed into law and includes cuts to Medicaid and 350 billion for border and national security. Trump, in response to Musk's criticisms that Republicans were supporting "debt slavery," threatened to cut electric vehicle subsidies and investigate SpaceX spending, saying it may force Musk to "close up shop and head back home to South Africa."

Drew Kesse's daughter, Jennifer, vanished from her Central Florida apartment in 2006, with FDLE recently announcing the cold case has been reopened with new evidence. Nearly two decades after a Florida woman vanished from her apartment building without a trace, authorities have announced a new break that could breathe new life into a formerly cold case. Jennifer Kesse, 24, vanished from her Orlando condo complex after leaving for work on the morning of Jan. 24, 2006, stumping both state and federal investigators as authorities raced to catch her abductor. "About an hour and a half into the workday, I received a call from her work," Drew Kesse, Jennifer's father, told Fox News Digital. "And they said, 'Hey, Jennifer had a meeting this morning, it's not like her to show up. Do you know where she is?'" Jennifer Kesse smiles in an undated family photo.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has condemned a Russian drone and missile attack against Ukraine this week that has been described as the largest such assault in the three-year war. In a statement on Saturday, Guterres's spokesperson said the Russian strikes "disrupted the power supply to the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, once again underlining the ongoing risks to nuclear safety". "The secretary-general is alarmed by this dangerous escalation and the growing number of civilian casualties," the statement read. Ukrainian officials said Moscow fired more than 500 drones and 11 missiles at the capital Kyiv overnight into Friday in an attack that killed one person, injured at least 23 others and damaged buildings across the city. The sounds of air raid sirens, kamikaze drones and booming detonations reverberated until dawn.

Thanks to a team at the University of California, Davis, theres a new brain-computer interface (BCI) system thats opening up real-time, natural conversation for people who cant speak. VOICE BREAKTHROUGH: When someone loses the ability to speak because of a neurological condition like ALS, the impact goes far beyond words. Now, thanks to a team at the University of California, Davis, there's a new brain-computer interface (BCI) system that's opening up real-time, natural conversation for people who can't speak. Instead, it translates the brain signals that would normally control the muscles used for speech, allowing users to "talk" and even "sing" through a computer, almost instantly. JOBS ON THE LINE: If you've ordered food on Uber Eats recently, you may have seen a delivery robot instead of a human driver.

It was a Monday afternoon in June 2023 when Rita Meier, 45, joined us for a video call. Meier told us about the last time she said goodbye to her husband, Stefan, five years earlier. He had been leaving their home near Lake Constance, Germany, heading for a trade fair in Milan. Meier recalled how he hesitated between taking his Tesla Model S or her BMW. He had never driven the Tesla that far before. He checked the route for charging stations along the way and ultimately decided to try it. Rita had a bad feeling. She stayed home with their three children, the youngest less than a year old. At 3.18pm on 10 May 2018, Stefan Meier lost control of his Model S on the A2 highway near the Monte Ceneri tunnel. "The collision with the guardrail launches the vehicle into the air, where it flips several times before landing," investigators would write later. The car came to rest more than 70 metres away, on the opposite side of the road, leaving a trail of wreckage. Several passersby tried to open the doors and rescue the driver, but they couldn't unlock the car. When they heard explosions and saw flames through the windows, they retreated. Even the firefighters, who arrived 20 minutes later, could do nothing but watch the Tesla burn.

The'Outnumbered' panel discusses how celebrities have reportedly authored a letter to President Donald Trump seeking his protection against artificial intelligence after smearing his name for years. Left-leaning actress Natasha Lyonne is at the forefront of Hollywood efforts to get the government to address creators' concerns about AI infringing on their work. "My primary interest is that people get paid for their life's work," Lyonne said in a report in the Wall Street Journal. The story detailed Lyonne's efforts to lobby Hollywood heavyweights to sign onto her letter to the Trump administration in March, urging against the loosening of regulations around AI, which they deem a potential threat to their intellectual property without proper protections in place. REPUBLICANS SCRAP DEAL IN'BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL' TO LOWER RESTRICTIONS ON STATES' AI REGULATIONS Natasha Lyonne is among Hollywood figures lobbying the Trump administration to rein in AI. (Photo by Araya Doheny/Getty Images) The Hollywood letter said the companies "are arguing for a special government exemption so they can freely exploit America's creative and knowledge industries, despite their substantial revenues and available funds. Lyonne and more than 400 others, including such figures as Paul McCartney, Ron Howard and Ben Stiller, signed the letter. Lyonne, known for her roles in the series "Poker Face" and "Russian Doll," is a partner in a new studio called Asteria, which describes itself as "an artist-led generative AI film and animation studio powered by the first clean and ethical AI model." Like many figures in Hollywood, Lyonne is not a fan of the president, endorsing Kamala Harris in 2024 and posting in a now-deleted X post in 2020 about turning Texas blue to defeat Trump. Earlier this year, she told The Hollywood Reporter she was concerned for marginalized communities, saying of Trump, "It's very weird to have like a showbiz guy in charge, is surreal.