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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) - An updated version of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, tailored for eventual crewed missions for NASA, made its debut launch on Friday from Florida’s Cape Canaveral carrying a communications satellite for Bangladesh into orbit. The newly minted Block-5 edition of the Falcon 9 - equipped with about 100 upgrades for greater power, safety and reusability than its Block-4 predecessor - lifted off at 4:14 p.m. EDT (2014 GMT) from the Kennedy Space Center. Minutes later, the rocket’s main-stage booster flew itself back to Earth to achieve a safe return landing on an unmanned platform vessel floating in the Pacific Ocean. The recoverable Block-5 booster is designed to be reused at least 10 times with minimal refurbishment between flights, allowing more frequent launches at lower cost - a key to the SpaceX business model. Enhanced rocket reusability also is a core tenet of SpaceX owner and billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk’s broader objectives of making space travel commonplace and ultimately sending humans to Mars. SpaceX has safely return-landed 24 of its boosters and reflown 11 of them. Friday’s flight marked the ninth SpaceX launch so far this year, compared to five orbital-class missions the company had logged at the same point in 2017, according to Musk. It came a day after the original launch countdown was halted one minute before blastoff time due to a technical problem detected by the rocket’s onboard computers. Friday’s second attempt by SpaceX, formally known as Space Exploration Technologies, appeared to have gone off without a hitch. The rocket’s payload, the Bangladeshi government’s first communications satellite, Bangabandhu-1, was placed into Earth orbit at 4:47 p.m. EDT, just 33 minutes after launch, according to SpaceX. The achievement was hailed by Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in a livestream appearance from her country’s capital, Dhaka. “Today is a very delightful and glorious day for our motherland, Bangladesh, and Bangalee nation,” she said. “With launching of Bangabandhu Satellite-1, we are hoisting our national flag in the space.” The Block-5 also marks another milestone for Musk’s California-based company. It is expected to be the first SpaceX vehicle to satisfy NASA’s standards for its Commercial Crew Program to carry agency astronauts to the International Space Station. NASA requires seven successful flights before the new rocket receives final certification for a manned mission. Besides missions to the space station, the new rocket will be used to launch U.S. Air Force global positioning satellites and other high-value, military and national security payloads. Block-5 marks the final version of the Falcon 9 lineup before SpaceX introduces its super heavy-lift launch vehicle, dubbed the Big Falcon Rocket, or BFR, which will be designed to send manned missions to Mars. SpaceX is one of two private companies hired by NASA to ferry astronaut crews to the space station. The other is Boeing Co.

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SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea has scheduled the dismantlement of its nuclear test site for sometime between May 23 and 25 depending on weather conditions in order to uphold its previous pledge to discontinue nuclear tests, state media reported on Saturday. The country’s central news agency said the dismantlement of the nuclear test ground would involve collapsing all of its tunnels with explosions, blocking its entrances and removing all observation facilities, research buildings and security posts. “The Nuclear Weapon Institute and other concerned institutions are taking technical measures for dismantling the northern nuclear test ground of the DPRK in order to ensure transparency of discontinuance of the nuclear test,” said the announcement. DPRK is an acronym for North Korea’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. The announcement comes after U.S. President Donald Trump said he would hold a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore on June 12. It will be the first meeting ever between a sitting U.S. president and the leader of North Korea. It follows a flurry of international engagement with North Korea as the two Koreas held their own summit in late April and officials plan to hold high-level meetings in coming weeks. Trump’s Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Friday North Korea can look forward to “a future brimming with peace and prosperity” if it agrees to quickly give up its nuclear weapons. Officials in Seoul had said in April that North Korea planned to invite experts and journalists from the United States and South Korea for the shutdown of its test site. North Korea said journalists from other countries, including the United States and South Korea, will be invited to cover the event, to “show in a transparent manner the dismantlement of the northern nuclear test ground to be carried out”. In order to accommodate the travelling journalists, North Korea said various measures would be taken including “opening territorial air space”. All international journalists will be provided with a charter flight into Wonsan, a port city in eastern North Korea, from Beijing, KCNA said. There, reporters will board a charter train to the nuclear test ground in an “uninhabited deep mountain area”. North Korea’s six known nuclear tests have taken place in Punggye-ri, a location in the northeastern part of North Korea where a system of tunnels have been dug under Mount Mantap. Experts have said the pledge to dismantle the test site is a big step forward but verifying it will be difficult.

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A dramatic reenactment of one user's futile attempt to find a moderator on this

Pink Floyd- Comfortably Numb

WASHINGTON — President Trump, exulting in the release of three Americans from prison in North Korea, confirmed Thursday that he would meet Kim Jong-un, the North’s leader, in Singapore on June 12, setting the date for a once unimaginable encounter. The choice of Singapore, a tidy, prosperous city-state with ties to both the United States and North Korea, is a small victory for Mr. Trump’s advisers, who talked him out of meeting Mr. Kim in the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea — a far more symbolic, but politically problematic, location. “We will both try to make it a very special moment for World Peace!” Mr. Trump said in a midmorning post on Twitter, hours after he traveled in the middle of the night to Joint Base Andrews near Washington to greet the three men: Kim Dong-chul, Tony Kim and Kim Hak-song. North Korea’s release of the Americans lifted a major obstacle to the summit meeting. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who has taken charge of the diplomatic opening to the North, finalized its date and location during a 90-minute meeting with Kim Jong-un in Pyongyang, the north’s capital. Afterward, Mr. Pompeo left with the detainees on his plane. For Mr. Trump, basking in the glow of floodlights and TV cameras, it was a jubilant moment as he descended the steps of the aircraft with the three Americans, who flashed peace signs. But he acknowledged that the most difficult phase of the negotiations — persuading North Korea to surrender its nuclear weapons arsenal — lies ahead. “We’re starting off on a new footing,” he said. “I think he did this because I really think he wants to do something and bring that country into the real world.” As the two sides discussed potential meeting sites — the United States, South Korea, Mongolia, Vietnam and even a Navy warship anchored in the Pacific — they balanced political issues with practical considerations, like whether Mr. Kim could fly long distances on North Korea’s rickety aircraft. Last week, Mr. Trump expressed his preference for the Demilitarized Zone, saying that if the talks were successful, “there’s a great celebration to be had on the site.” He was clearly beguiled by the meeting of Mr. Kim and President Moon Jae-in of South Korea, which was replete with the images of two long-estranged neighbors making peace. But that symbolism troubled some officials, who argued that the Demilitarized Zone, because of its connection to the Korean War, would put a greater spotlight on the prospects for peace on the Korean Peninsula than on ridding the North of its nuclear weapons. They also worried about the optics of Mr. Trump traveling to Mr. Kim’s doorstep. EDITORS’ PICKS On Social Media’s Fringes, Extremism Targets Women A Simple Way to Improve a Billion Lives: Eyeglasses An Orchestra Adopts a City, One Kid at Time Singapore, by contrast, is neutral ground, nearly 3,000 miles from Pyongyang, and not a treaty ally of the United States, like South Korea, Japan or the Philippines. Both countries have embassies there, United States Navy warships call at Singapore’s port and North Korea has operated trading companies there, though they have been shut down because of sanctions against Pyongyang. “North Korea will have a comfort level there that they just don’t have in other countries,” said Franklin L. Lavin, who served as the American ambassador to Singapore under President George W. Bush. A large C.I.A. station is also in Singapore, another former official said, and American spies meet regularly with their North Korean counterparts as part of an intelligence channel between the two countries.

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How's this for creepy?! A man was arrested and tasered after he allegedly broke into Rihanna's home and spent the night. TMZ reported that cops arrived at RiRi's house early on May 10 after the singer's alarm company reported a possible intruder. The alarm company suspected that someone may have been in Rihanna's house because the alarm had apparently been tampered with. "Once officers arrived, they came upon a man who appeared to have stayed the night," TMZ said. Knowing that the man didn't live there, police reportedly ordered him to come outside. At some point, authorities tasered the man, although it's unclear why. Rihanna wasn't home at the time of the alleged break-in. Police are still investigating if anything was taken, and they're also trying to determine how exactly he got in. The man was booked in jail for residential burglary. Something similar happened to Taylor Swift last month when a man allegedly broke into a house owned by the singer and made himself at home, even sleeping in a bed.

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The new deal with Adult Swim is for more than double the amount of episodes that the cult cartoon has already produced. Rick and Morty fans won't have to worry about renewals for quite a while. Adult Swim just handed out a 70-episode order of the cult cartoon. Described as a "longterm deal," albeit without any announced time frame, the order is for more than double the count of episodes Rick and Morty has already produced to date. Co-creators Justin Roiland and Dan Harmon have been especially precious about the comedy, spacing out seasons and waiting as long as two years before the most recent run aired. A Rick and Morty renewal was given, but the extent of this new pact is quite unexpected. Should Roiland and Harmon maintain anything close to their current production schedule, this will keep the show on the air for as long as another decade. Rick and Morty is the de facto flagship of Adult Swim, Cartoon Network's youth-skewing cable sibling. It ranked as TV's No. 1 comedy, cable or broadcast, among millennials in 2017. With adults 18-24 and 18-34, it topped The Big Bang Theory, Modern Family and Saturday Night Live. Another 70 episodes will give Rick and Morty a whopping 101 total. That's one past the once-magic number for syndication, and it certainly sweetens the library value for producers Williams Street and owner Turner. To celebrate the deal, Adult Swim is rolling out a multi-city popup, the Rickmobile, to cater to the fervent fan base. The tour kicks off May 17 in Atlanta before making its way to San Diego Comic-Con in July.

Rick and Morty

I mean, come on.

Arrested Development: Fateful Consequences

I play bebop jazz on electric guitar

Me on guitar

(CNN)Michael Cohen served loyally as Donald Trump's right-hand man for more than a decade, taking care of anything and everything the New York real estate baron needed to get done. On November 8, 2016, Cohen's stock suddenly soared: He was now the personal attorney to the President-elect of the United States, with unique understanding of a man that everyone was scrambling to get access to. Cohen quickly got to work. According to multiple people familiar with Cohen's conduct following the election, he aggressively pitched himself to potential clients, reminding them of his proximity to the most powerful man in the world. Those efforts landed Cohen lucrative consulting deals. New reporting this week revealed that in the months following the 2016 election, Cohen received hundreds of thousands of dollars from powerful entities based in and outside of the United States. "I don't know who's been representing you, but you should fire them all. I'm the guy you should hire. I'm closest to the President. I'm his personal lawyer," was how one GOP strategist described Cohen's sales pitch. One company that Cohen immediately sought out was pharmaceutical giant Novartis. "He was shopping himself around," a source familiar told CNN. Cohen would ultimately land a one-year contract with the firm by promising access to the White House on health care policy. Inside Michael Cohen's aggressive pitch promising access to Trump By MJ Lee, Javier De Diego, Sarah Westwood, Marshall Cohen, Gloria Borger, Sara Murray and Dana Bash, CNN Updated 6:33 PM ET, Wed May 9, 2018 Anderson Cooper: It seems moronic for Cohen Current Time 0:16 / Duration Time 1:49 Now Playing Anderson Cooper: It... WASHINGTON, DC - DECEMBER 13: U.S. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein testifies during a a House Judiciary Committee hearing on December 13, 2017 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Zach Gibson/Getty Images) Rosenstein to Trump: You're not a target Attorney Michael Cohen arrives to Trump Tower for meetings with President-elect Donald Trump on December 16, 2016 in New York. FBI raids Trump lawyer Michael Cohen's office Who is Michael Cohen? Attorney Michael Cohen arrives at Trump Tower for meetings with President-elect Donald Trump on December 16, 2016 in New York. Michael Cohen talks FBI raid with Don Lemon avenatti michael cohen trump fixer Avenatti: Trump picked the wrong 'fixer' Michael Avenatti newday 2 04092018 Avenatti: Trump shot himself in the foot trump hot mic billy bush video bus exit Times Trump accepted the 'Access Hollywood' tape Michael Cohen and Stormy Daniels Stormy Daniels sues Cohen for defamation Now Playing Anderson Cooper: It seems moronic for Cohen rudy giuliani fox news Giuliani: Trump repaid Cohen for Stormy payment Trump: No knowledge of Stormy Daniels payment Stormy Daniels attorney Avenatti Stormy lawyer: Trump won't serve out his term michael avenatti 04262018 Stormy's lawyer: Trump implicated himself Trump: Cohen case doesn't have to do with me Michael Cohen walks down the sidewalk in New York, Wednesday, April 11, 2018. (AP/Seth Wenig) Michael Cohen under criminal investigation

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Facebook instituted its biggest executive shakeup in its 15-year history this week, appointing new leaders for WhatsApp, Messenger and Facebook’s core app while giving other longtime Facebook executives new responsibilities, including a new effort to tackle blockchain technology. The moves, which were announced internally to employees today, are meant to improve executive communication and user privacy, but the changes also come as Facebook contends with the backlash from the U.S. presidential election, revelations of manipulation by the Russian government and the recent Cambridge Analytica scandal. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has reorganized the social giant’s product and engineering organizations into three main divisions, including a new “Family of apps” group run by Chief Product Officer Chris Cox, the executive previously in charge of the core Facebook app. Cox will now oversee Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger, according to multiple sources, four social apps with a combined reach of more than five billion monthly users. Facebook is also building a new team dedicated to blockchain technology. David Marcus, the executive in charge of Facebook’s standalone messaging app, Messenger, is leaving that post to run the blockchain group, these sources said. That new team will fall under one of the other three divisions, referred to as “New platforms and infra,” which will be managed by CTO Mike Schroepfer. Facebook’s AR, VR and artificial intelligence efforts will also live under Schroepfer’s division. Longtime Facebook exec Javier Olivan, the company’s VP of growth, will oversee the third division, called “Central product services,” which includes all of the shared features that operate across multiple products or apps such as ads, security and growth. Surprisingly, no one appears to be leaving Facebook. Just a lot of old faces in new places. You may have noticed from the diagram that almost all of Facebook’s top product and engineering execs are men. That’s true, though Facebook does have a number of high ranking and influential female product executives that aren’t directly involved in these changes. For example: Fidji Simo, who runs video; Deb Liu, who runs Marketplace; and Julie Zhuo, who runs design. Then, of course, there’s Sheryl Sandberg on the business side of things. The changes all come at an interesting time for Facebook and Zuckerberg, who has been openly discussing his need to take more responsibility for Facebook’s impact on the world. Zuckerberg’s New Year’s resolution was to fix Facebook, and restructuring the team is clearly part of that fix. The hope is that these new roles will keep more open lines of communication among executives without hurting the speed Facebook is known for. (“Move fast and break things,” remember?)

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