The Suicide Squad Hits, SpaceX Has A Big Rocket In Its Pocket, Italy Roars Back With Green Pass … and More

The Suicide Squad has taken a King Shark-sized bite out of the pandemic box office. Thanks to strong Thursday night ticket sales totaling $4.1 million, the James Gunn-directed superhero flick now holds the title as the top-grossing R-rated pre-sale release since the coronavirus pandemic began, according to distributor Warner Bros. Atop sturdy box office numbers across its theatrical debut, The Suicide Squad — starring Margot Robbie, Idris Elba, Viola Davis, and more in a DC Comics superhero tale — also generated glowing reviews from critics and audiences alike.

Earlier today, engineers with SpaceX ever-so-carefully placed a Starship second-stage rocket atop a Super Heavy booster, resulting in the tallest rocket ever built, albeit a rocket that has yet to leave Earth’s surface. At 394 feet tall, the newly constructed Starship system is taller than NASA’s Apollo-era Saturn V rocket (362.9 feet) and also NASA’s upcoming SLS rocket when stacked in the Block 2 cargo configuration (365.1 feet). SpaceX CEO Elon Musk proudly displayed images of the impressive structure on Twitter, describing it as “Starship Fully Stacked.”

On Friday, the first day that Italians needed to present a nationwide health passport for access to indoor dining, museums, gyms, theaters and a wide range of social activities, Margherita Catenuto, 18, from Sicily, proudly showed a bar code at the Capitoline Museum in Rome certifying that she was vaccinated. “It’s like showing you have a conscience,” said Ms. Catenuto as she walked in. “You do it for yourself, and you do it for others. It’s very sensible.” Similar measures to stem the coronavirus pandemic have prompted large protests in France and bitterly split Americans between cities that will require vaccine passes, like New York, and entire parts of the country that consider even masks an affront to their rights. But Italians have mostly greeted their new Green Pass with widespread acceptance and, after some compromises, near political consensus.

Tucker Carlson is spending a week in Budapest in order to annoy Americans and everybody else who believes in the ideals of America: the rule of law, a free press, free elections, the conviction that democracy is preferable to autocracy. Showing how much he despises the United States, its Constitution, and its heritage, the Fox News host is celebrating the achievements of a petty Central European autocrat, Viktor Orbán. He seems to believe that by paying homage to Hungary’s assault on democratic institutions, he will make people angry at home, just as his host does. The good thing about Orbán, Carlson told a dinner party in Budapest, is that “you’re truly hated by all the right people.” And yes, “all the right people” includes everyone who still has some faith in the American dream.

On August 6, 1991, the first website was introduced to the world.

And while perhaps not as exciting or immersive as some of the nearly 1.9 billion websites that exist today, it makes sense that the first web page launched on the good ol' W3 was, well, instructions about how to use it. The first website contained information about the World Wide Web Project. It launched at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, CERN, where it was created by British computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee. On it, people could find out how to create web pages and learn about hypertext (coded words or phrases that link to content).

The Paraná River, one of the main commercial waterways in South America, has reached its lowest level in nearly 80 years due to a prolonged drought in Brazil that scientists attribute to climate change. At peril is a vast ecosystem that includes potable water for 40 million people, the livelihood of fishing communities and farmers, and the navigability of a major grain export hub. The National Water Institute of Argentina has defined the low water level of the Paraná River, which goes through Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina, as “the worst since 1944.”