6 dead, nearly 2 dozen injured after severe storms tear through Tennessee
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Severe storms that tore through central Tennessee killed six people Saturday and sent about two dozen to the hospital as homes and businesses were damaged in multiple cities.
Three people, including a child, were killed after an apparent tornado struck Montgomery County north of Nashville near the Kentucky state line, county officials said in a news release. And the Nashville Emergency Operation Center said in a post on a social media account that three people were killed by severe storms there. Montgomery County officials said another 23 there were treated for injuries at hospitals.
What might a second Trump presidency look like? Political journalists shift attention to Jan. 20, 2025
NEW YORK — Even before anyone has cast a vote in a 2024 presidential primary, the attention of many political journalists has shifted to Jan. 20, 2025.
There has been a flurry of recent stories about the implications of a potential second presidency for Donald Trump, and his team's planning for Inauguration Day and beyond. Polls show his continued dominance over Republican rivals and the likelihood of a close general election.
The 2024 presidential field, in the order they've announced
Donald Trump, Republican
Donald Trump, Republican
Former President Donald Trump, aiming to become only the second commander-in-chief ever elected to two nonconsecutive terms, announced in November that he is seeking the Republican presidential nomination in 2024.
“In order to make America great and glorious again, I am tonight announcing my candidacy for president of the United States,” Trump told a crowd gathered at Mar-a-Lago, his waterfront estate in Florida, where his campaign will be headquartered. - CNN
Evan Vucci, Associated Press
Nikki Haley, Republican
Nikki Haley, Republican
Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador, announced her candidacy for president on Feb. 14, becoming the first major challenger to former President Donald Trump for the 2024 Republican nomination.
The announcement, delivered in a video, marked an about-face for the ex-Trump Cabinet official, who said two years ago that she wouldn't challenge her former boss for the White House in 2024. But she changed her mind in recent months, citing, among other things, the country's economic troubles and the need for "generational change," a nod to the 76-year-old Trump's age.
"You should know this about me. I don't put up with bullies. And when you kick back, it hurts them more if you're wearing heels," Haley said. "I'm Nikki Haley and I'm running for president."
Charlie Neibergall, Associated Press
Vivek Ramaswamy, Republican
Vivek Ramaswamy, Republican
Vivek Ramaswamy, a biotech entrepreneur and author, launches his 2024 campaign Feb. 21.
“We’re in the middle of a national identity crisis,” his video announcement began. “Faith, patriotism and hard work have disappeared, only to be replaced by new secular religions like Covidism, climatism and gender ideology.”
He has voiced support for changing the overall U.S. voting age to 25, unless younger Americans fulfill at least six months of service in the military or as a first responder — or pass the same citizenship test administered to those seeking to become naturalized citizens.
Charlie Neibergall, Associated Press
Marianne Williamson, Democrat
Marianne Williamson, Democrat
Self-help author Marianne Williamson, whose 2020 White House campaign featured more quirky calls for spiritual healing than actual voter support, launched another longshot bid for the presidency March 4, becoming the first Democrat to formally challenge President Joe Biden for the 2024 nomination.
“We are upset about this country, we’re worried about this country,” Williamson told a crowd of more than 600 at a kickoff in the nation’s capital. “It is our job to create a vision of justice and love that is so powerful that it will override the forces of hatred and injustice and fear.”
Jose Luis Magana, Associated Press
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Independent
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Democrat
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a member of one of the country’s most famous political families who has in recent years been linked to some far-right figures, kicked off his campaign in Boston on April 19 and likened his campaign to the American revolution.
“My mission over the next 18 months of this campaign and throughout my presidency will be to end the corrupt merger of state and corporate power that is threatening now to impose a new kind of corporate feudalism in our country,” Kennedy said.
Kennedy is a nephew of President John F. Kennedy and the son of his slain brother Robert F. Kennedy.
On Oct. 9, Kennedy dropped his bid for the Democratic nomination, deciding instead to run as an independent.
Josh Reynolds, Associated Press
Larry Elder, Republican (dropped out)
Larry Elder, Republican
Conservative talk radio host Larry Elder, who sought to replace the California governor in a failed 2021 recall effort, announced April 20 he is running for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024.
Elder, 70, made the announcement on Fox News' “Tucker Carlson Tonight” and followed up with a tweet.
“America is in decline, but this decline is not inevitable. We can enter a new American Golden Age, but we must choose a leader who can bring us there. That’s why I’m running for President,” he wrote.
Elder announced Oct. 26, 2023, that he was ending his campaign and endorsing former President Trump.
Charlie Neibergall, Associated Press
President Joe Biden, Democrat
President Joe Biden, Democrat
President Joe Biden on April 25 formally announced that he is running for reelection in 2024, asking voters to give him more time to “finish this job” and extend the run of America’s oldest president for another four years.
Biden, who would be 86 at the end of a second term, is betting his first-term legislative achievements and more than 50 years of experience in Washington will count for more than concerns over his age. He faces a smooth path to winning his party’s nomination, with no serious Democratic challengers. But he’s still set for a hard-fought struggle to retain the presidency in a bitterly divided nation.
Evan Vucci, Associated Press
Asa Hutchinson, Republican
Asa Hutchinson, Republican
Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson formally launched his Republican presidential campaign April 26, pledging to “bring out the best of America” and aiming to draw contrasts with other GOP hopefuls on top issues, including how best to reform federal law enforcement agencies.
Hutchinson kicked off his 2024 bid in his hometown of Bentonville, on the same steps where he launched an unsuccessful U.S. Senate campaign 30 years ago.
“I ran as a conservative Republican when being a Republican was like having a career-ending handicap,” Hutchinson said, adding, “And now, I bring that same vigor to fight another battle, and that battle is for the future of our country and the soul of our party.”
Sue Ogrocki, Associated Press
Tim Scott, Republican (dropped out)
Tim Scott, Republican
South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott launched his presidential campaign May 22, offering an optimistic message he hopes can contrast the two figures who have used political combativeness to dominate the early GOP primary field: former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Scott, the Senate's only Black Republican, made the announcement in his hometown of North Charleston at Southern University, his alma mater and a private school affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention.
“Our party and our nation are standing at a time for choosing. Victimhood or victory?," he told cheering supporters, adding, "Grievance or greatness?"
Scott abruptly announced Sunday, Nov. 12, that he was dropping out of the 2024 race, a development that surprised his donors and stunned his campaign staff just two months before the start of voting in Iowa’s leadoff GOP caucuses.
Meg Kinnard, Associated Press
Ron DeSantis, Republican
Ron DeSantis, Republican
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis launched his 2024 presidential campaign May 24 with firm words but a disastrous Twitter announcement.
While he tried to project confidence, DeSantis' unusual decision to announce his campaign in an online conversation with Twitter CEO Elon Musk ultimately backfired. The audio stream crashed repeatedly, making it virtually impossible for most users to hear the new presidential candidate in real time.
“American decline is not inevitable — it is a choice. And we should choose a new direction — a path that will lead to American revitalization,” DeSantis said on the glitchy stream, racing through his conservative accomplishments. “I am running for president of the United States to lead our great American comeback."
Paige Dingler, The News & Advance
Mike Pence, Republican (dropped out)
Mike Pence, Republican
Former Vice President Mike Pence opened his bid for the Republican nomination for president June 7 with a firm denunciation of former President Donald Trump, accusing his two-time running mate of abandoning conservative principles and being guilty of dereliction of duty on Jan. 6, 2021.
Pence is the first vice president in modern history to challenge the president under whom he served. While he spent much of his speech, delivered at a community college in a suburb of Des Moines, criticizing Democratic President Joe Biden and the direction he has taken the country, he also addressed Jan. 6 head-on, saying Trump had disqualified himself when he declared falsely that Pence had the power to keep him in office.
Pence dropped out of the race Saturday, Oct. 28, after struggling to raise money and gain traction in the polls.
Charlie Neibergall, Associated Press
Chris Christie, Republican
Chris Christie, Republican
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie wasted no time going after Donald Trump while launching his presidential campaign June 6, calling the former president and current Republican primary front-runner a “lonely, self-consumed, self-serving mirror hog" and arguing that he's the only one who can stop him.
Kicking off his campaign with a town hall at Saint Anselm College, Christie suggested that other top Republicans have been afraid to challenge Trump or even mention his name much while campaigning — but made it clear he had no such qualms.
Charles Krupa, Associated Press
Doug Burgum, Republican (dropped out)
Doug Burgum, Republican (dropped out Dec. 4, 2023)
North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, a former software entrepreneur who enacted a slate of laws this year advancing conservative policies on culture war issues, highlighted his small-town roots and business experience as he announced his candidacy for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination on June 7.
The governor of the nation's fourth-least populous state kicked off his campaign in Fargo, near the tiny farm town of Arthur where he grew up.
“Small-town values have guided me my entire life,” Burgum told the crowd. “And frankly, big cities could use more ideas and more values from small towns right now.”
Burgum ended his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination on Monday, Dec. 4, after a stronger-than-expected showing fueled by a gift card-for-campaign donation gimmick that helped get him on the debate stage.
Mike McCleary/The Bismarck Tribune
Francis Suarez, Republican (dropped out)
Francis Suarez, Republican (dropped out)
Miami Mayor Francis Suarez announced his bid for the Republican presidential nomination June 15, jumping into the crowded race just days after GOP front-runner Donald Trump appeared in court on federal charges in Suarez's city.
The 45-year-old mayor is the only Hispanic candidate in the race. He has gained national attention in recent years for his efforts to lure companies to Miami, with an eye toward turning the city into a crypto hub and the next Silicon Valley.
Suarez, who is married with two young children, is a corporate and real estate attorney who previously served as a city of Miami commissioner. He has also positioned himself as someone who can help the party further connect with Hispanics. In recent months, he has made visits to early GOP voting states as he weighed a possible 2024 campaign.
AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee, File
Will Hurd, Republican (dropped out)
Will Hurd, Republican (dropped out)
Former Republican Texas congressman Will Hurd suspended his presidential bid and endorsed fellow GOP primary candidate Nikki Haley, officially abandoning a brief campaign built on criticizing Donald Trump at a time when his party seems even more determined to embrace the former president.
Charlie Neibergall, Associated Press
Limits on abortion medication, Capitol riot charges at center of latest Supreme Court cases
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Wednesday said it will hear an appeal that could upend hundreds of charges stemming from the Capitol riot, including against former President Donald Trump. It also agreed to take up a dispute over a medication used in the most common method of abortion in the United States, its first abortion case since it overturned Roe v. Wade last year.
The justices will hear appeals from the Biden administration and the maker of the drug mifepristone asking the high court to reverse an appellate ruling that would cut off access to the drug through the mail and impose other restrictions, even in states where abortion remains legal. The restrictions include shortening from the current 10 weeks to seven weeks the time during which mifepristone can be used in pregnancy.
Nominated to serve as chief justice by President George W. Bush
Took seat Sept. 29, 2005
Born Jan. 27, 1955, in Buffalo, N.Y.
AP FILE
Justice Clarence Thomas
Associate Justice Clarence Thomas
Nominated to serve as associate justice by President George H.W. Bush
Took seat Oct. 23, 1991
Born June 23, 1948, near Savannah, Georgia
Pablo Martinez Monsivais
Justice Samuel Alito
Associate Justice Samuel Alito
Nominated to serve as associate justice by President George W. Bush
Took seat Jan. 31, 2006
Born April 1, 1950, in Trenton, New Jersey
AP FILE
Justice Sonia Sotomayor
Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor
Nominated to serve as associate justice by President Barack Obama
Took seat Aug. 8, 2009
Born June 25, 1954, in Bronx, New York
AP FILE
Justice Elena Kagan
Associate Justice Elena Kagan
Nominated to serve as associate justice by President Barack Obama
Took seat Aug. 7, 2010
Born April 28, 1960, in New York City
AP FILE
Justice Neil Gorsuch
Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch
Nominated to serve as associate justice by President Donald Trump
Took seat April 10, 2017
Born Aug. 29, 1967, in Denver, Colorado
AP FILE
Justice Brett Kavanaugh
Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh
Nominated to serve as associate justice by President Donald Trump
Took seat Oct. 6, 2018
Born Feb. 12, 1965, in Washington D.C.
THE NEW YORK TIMES VIA AP, POOL
Justice Amy Coney Barrett
Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett
Nominated to serve as associate justice by President Donald Trump
Took seat Oct. 27, 2020
Born January 28, 1972
Associated Press
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson
Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson
Nominated to serve as associate justice by President Joe Biden
Took seat June 30, 2022
Born September 14, 1970
AP file
Two men charged with killing, selling bald and golden eagles
Two men were indicted last week on federal charges of illegally killing and trafficking numerous bald and golden eagles in Montana.
According to a grand jury indictment filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Missoula, Simon Paul, Travis John Branson and "others" killed about 3,600 birds, eagles among them, during a self-described "killing spree" on the Flathead Indian Reservation north of Missoula and elsewhere. The pair allegedly sold the birds and parts of birds "for significant sums of cash" in the U.S. and internationally.
Judge in Trump election case pauses court deadlines as appeal is heard on presidential immunity
WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump’s 2020 election interference case in Washington will be put on hold while the former president further pursues his claims that he is immune from prosecution, the judge overseeing the case ruled Wednesday.
U.S. District Judge Tanya agreed to pause any “further proceedings that would move this case towards trial or impose additional burdens of litigation on Defendant.” But the judge said that if the case returns to her court, she will “consider at that time whether to retain or continue the dates of any still-future deadlines and proceedings, including the trial scheduled for March 4, 2024.”
A look at the 19 people charged in the Georgia indictment connected to Trump's election scheme
Key people in the Georgia election fraud case
Four of the 18 people charged alongside former President Donald Trump with participating in an illegal scheme to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in Georgia have now negotiated deals with prosecutors, pleading guilty to reduced charges in exchange for their truthful testimony in future trials.
Lawyer Jenna Ellis on Tuesday became the latest to turn against Trump, pleading guilty to a single felony charge in exchange for a sentence of probation rather than prison time. Fellow attorneys Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro reached similar deals last week, just as their trial in the case was supposed to start because they had invoked their rights to a speedy trial. Bail bondsman Scott Graham Hall last month was the first to plead guilty.
Trump and the others charged in the case have pleaded not guilty.
The sweeping indictment, brought by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, pictured, in August, capped an investigation that had lasted more than two years and marked the fourth criminal case brought against the former president. Its 41 counts include racketeering, violating the oath of a public officer, forgery, false statements and other offenses.
Here’s a look at the 19 people charged:
AP Photo/John Bazemore, File
Donald Trump
Then-President Trump fixated on Georgia after the 2020 general election, refusing to accept his narrow loss in the state and making unfounded assertions of widespread election fraud there. He also called top state officials, including Gov. Brian Kemp, to urge them to find a way to reverse his loss in the state. In a Jan. 2, 2021, phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, Trump suggested the state’s top elections official could help “find” the votes needed for him to win the state. Willis opened the investigation into possible illegal attempts to influence the election shortly after a recording of that call was made public.
AP file
Rudy Giuliani
During several legislative hearings at the Georgia Capitol in December 2020, the former New York mayor and Trump attorney promoted unsupported allegations of widespread election fraud in Georgia. Prosecutors have said Giuliani was also involved in a plan to have 16 Georgia Republicans serve as fake electors, falsely swearing that Trump had won the 2020 presidential election and declaring themselves the state’s “duly elected and qualified” electors.
AP file
John Eastman
Eastman, one of Trump’s lawyers and a former dean of Chapman University's law school in Southern California, was deeply involved in some of his efforts to remain in power after the 2020 election. He wrote a memo arguing that Trump could remain in power if then-Vice President Mike Pence overturned the results of the electoral certification during a joint session of Congress. That plan included putting in place a slate of “alternate” electors in seven battleground states, including Georgia, who would falsely certify that Trump had won their states.
AP file
Mark Meadows
Trump’s chief of staff visited Cobb County, in the Atlanta suburbs, while state investigators were conducting an audit of the signatures on absentee ballot envelopes in December 2020. Meadows obtained the phone number of the chief investigator for the secretary of state’s office, Frances Watson, and passed it along to Trump, who called her. He also participated in the Jan. 2, 2021, phone call between Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.
AP file
Sidney Powell
A lawyer and staunch Trump ally, Powell was present for a now-infamous December 2020 meeting at the White House where participants hatched far-fetched schemes. She also was part of a group that met at the South Carolina home of conservative attorney Lin Wood in November 2020 “for the purpose of exploring options to influence the results of the November 2020 elections in Georgia and elsewhere,” prosecutors said. Additionally, prosecutors alleged Powell was involved in arranging for a computer forensics team to travel to rural Coffee County, about 200 miles southeast of Atlanta, to copy data and software from elections equipment there in January 2021.
AP file
Kenneth Chesebro
Prosecutors have said Chesebro, an attorney, worked with Republicans in numerous swing states Trump lost, including Georgia, in the weeks after the November 2020 election at the direction of Trump’s campaign. Chesebro worked on the coordination and execution of a plan to have 16 Georgia Republicans sign a certificate declaring falsely that Trump won and declaring themselves the state’s “duly elected and qualified” electors.
Jeffrey Clark
A U.S. Justice Department official who championed Trump’s false claims of election fraud, Clark presented colleagues with a draft letter pushing Georgia officials to convene a special legislative session on the election results, according to testimony before the U.S. House committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot. Clark wanted the letter sent, but Justice Department superiors refused.
AP file
Jenna Ellis
The lawyer appeared with Giuliani at a Dec. 3, 2020, hearing hosted by state Republican lawmakers at the Georgia Capitol during which false allegations of election fraud were made. Ellis also wrote at least two legal memos to Trump and his attorneys advising that Pence should “disregard certified electoral college votes from Georgia and other purportedly ‘contested’ states” when Congress met to certify the election results on Jan. 6, 2021, prosecutors said.
AP file
Ray Smith
A Georgia-based lawyer, Smith was involved in multiple lawsuits challenging the results of the 2020 election in Georgia. He also gathered witnesses to provide testimony before Georgia legislative subcommittee hearings held in December 2020 on alleged issues with the state’s election.
Robert Cheeley
A Georgia lawyer, Cheeley presented video clips to legislators of election workers at the State Farm Arena in Atlanta and alleged the workers were counting votes twice or sometimes three times. He spoke to the lawmakers after Giuliani.
Michael Roman
A former White House aide who served as the director of Trump’s election day operations, Roman was involved in efforts to put forth a set of fake electors after the 2020 election.
Shawn Still
He was one of 16 Georgia Republicans who signed a certificate falsely stating that Trump had won the state and declaring themselves the state’s “duly elected and qualified” electors. Still was the finance chairman for the state GOP in 2020 and served as a Georgia delegate to the Republican National Convention that year. He was elected to the Georgia state Senate in November 2022 and represents a district in Atlanta’s suburbs.
Stephen Cliffgard Lee
Prosecutors say Cliffgard Lee, a pastor, worked with others to try to pressure Georgia election worker Ruby Freeman and her daughter after Trump and his allies falsely accused them of pulling fraudulent ballots from a suitcase during the vote count. Lee allegedly knocked on Freeman’s door, frightening her and causing her to call 911 three times, prosecutors said in a court filing last year.
Harrison William Prescott Floyd
Also known as Willie Lewis Floyd III, he served as director of Black Voices for Trump, and is accused of recruiting Lee to arrange a meeting with Freeman and Chicago-based publicist Trevian Kutti.
Trevian C. Kutti
Prosecutors allege Kutti, a publicist, claimed to have high-level law enforcement connections. They say Freeman met with Kutti at a police precinct, where she brought Floyd into the conversation on a speakerphone. Prosecutors say Kutti presented herself as someone who could help Freeman but then pressured her to falsely confess to election fraud.
Cathy Latham
Latham was one of 16 Georgia Republicans who signed a certificate falsely stating that Trump had won the state and declaring themselves the state’s “duly elected and qualified” electors. She was also chair of the Coffee County Republican Party. She was at the county elections office for much of the day on Jan. 7, 2021, and welcomed a computer forensics team that arrived to copy software and data from the county’s election equipment in what the secretary of state’s office has said was “unauthorized access” to the machines.
Coffee County, Georgia via AP
Scott Graham Hall
An Atlanta-area bail bondsman, Hall was allegedly involved in commandeering voting information that was the property of Dominion Voting Systems from Coffee County, a small south Georgia jurisdiction. Also charged in the scheme were Powell, Latham and former county elections supervisor Misty Hampton.
Misty Hampton
She was the elections director in Coffee County. Hampton was present in the county elections office on Jan. 7, 2021, when a computer forensics team copied software and data from the county’s election equipment. She also allowed two other men who had been active in efforts to question the 2020 election results to access the elections office later that month and to spend hours inside with the equipment.
Read the Trump indictment in Georgia
Giuliani ordered to pay $148M to Ga. election workers over 2020 vote lies; ‘absurd number,’ ex-NYC mayor says
WASHINGTON — A jury awarded $148 million in damages on Friday to two former Georgia election workers who sued Rudy Giuliani for defamation over lies he spread about them in 2020 that upended their lives with racist threats and harassment.
The damages verdict follows emotional testimony from Wandrea “Shaye” Moss and her mother, Ruby Freeman, who tearfully described becoming the target of a false conspiracy theory pushed by Giuliani and other Republicans as they tried to keep then-President Donald Trump in power after he lost the 2020 election.
A look at the 19 people charged in the Georgia indictment connected to Trump's election scheme
Key people in the Georgia election fraud case
Four of the 18 people charged alongside former President Donald Trump with participating in an illegal scheme to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in Georgia have now negotiated deals with prosecutors, pleading guilty to reduced charges in exchange for their truthful testimony in future trials.
Lawyer Jenna Ellis on Tuesday became the latest to turn against Trump, pleading guilty to a single felony charge in exchange for a sentence of probation rather than prison time. Fellow attorneys Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro reached similar deals last week, just as their trial in the case was supposed to start because they had invoked their rights to a speedy trial. Bail bondsman Scott Graham Hall last month was the first to plead guilty.
Trump and the others charged in the case have pleaded not guilty.
The sweeping indictment, brought by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, pictured, in August, capped an investigation that had lasted more than two years and marked the fourth criminal case brought against the former president. Its 41 counts include racketeering, violating the oath of a public officer, forgery, false statements and other offenses.
Here’s a look at the 19 people charged:
AP Photo/John Bazemore, File
Donald Trump
Then-President Trump fixated on Georgia after the 2020 general election, refusing to accept his narrow loss in the state and making unfounded assertions of widespread election fraud there. He also called top state officials, including Gov. Brian Kemp, to urge them to find a way to reverse his loss in the state. In a Jan. 2, 2021, phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, Trump suggested the state’s top elections official could help “find” the votes needed for him to win the state. Willis opened the investigation into possible illegal attempts to influence the election shortly after a recording of that call was made public.
AP file
Rudy Giuliani
During several legislative hearings at the Georgia Capitol in December 2020, the former New York mayor and Trump attorney promoted unsupported allegations of widespread election fraud in Georgia. Prosecutors have said Giuliani was also involved in a plan to have 16 Georgia Republicans serve as fake electors, falsely swearing that Trump had won the 2020 presidential election and declaring themselves the state’s “duly elected and qualified” electors.
AP file
John Eastman
Eastman, one of Trump’s lawyers and a former dean of Chapman University's law school in Southern California, was deeply involved in some of his efforts to remain in power after the 2020 election. He wrote a memo arguing that Trump could remain in power if then-Vice President Mike Pence overturned the results of the electoral certification during a joint session of Congress. That plan included putting in place a slate of “alternate” electors in seven battleground states, including Georgia, who would falsely certify that Trump had won their states.
AP file
Mark Meadows
Trump’s chief of staff visited Cobb County, in the Atlanta suburbs, while state investigators were conducting an audit of the signatures on absentee ballot envelopes in December 2020. Meadows obtained the phone number of the chief investigator for the secretary of state’s office, Frances Watson, and passed it along to Trump, who called her. He also participated in the Jan. 2, 2021, phone call between Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.
AP file
Sidney Powell
A lawyer and staunch Trump ally, Powell was present for a now-infamous December 2020 meeting at the White House where participants hatched far-fetched schemes. She also was part of a group that met at the South Carolina home of conservative attorney Lin Wood in November 2020 “for the purpose of exploring options to influence the results of the November 2020 elections in Georgia and elsewhere,” prosecutors said. Additionally, prosecutors alleged Powell was involved in arranging for a computer forensics team to travel to rural Coffee County, about 200 miles southeast of Atlanta, to copy data and software from elections equipment there in January 2021.
AP file
Kenneth Chesebro
Prosecutors have said Chesebro, an attorney, worked with Republicans in numerous swing states Trump lost, including Georgia, in the weeks after the November 2020 election at the direction of Trump’s campaign. Chesebro worked on the coordination and execution of a plan to have 16 Georgia Republicans sign a certificate declaring falsely that Trump won and declaring themselves the state’s “duly elected and qualified” electors.
Jeffrey Clark
A U.S. Justice Department official who championed Trump’s false claims of election fraud, Clark presented colleagues with a draft letter pushing Georgia officials to convene a special legislative session on the election results, according to testimony before the U.S. House committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot. Clark wanted the letter sent, but Justice Department superiors refused.
AP file
Jenna Ellis
The lawyer appeared with Giuliani at a Dec. 3, 2020, hearing hosted by state Republican lawmakers at the Georgia Capitol during which false allegations of election fraud were made. Ellis also wrote at least two legal memos to Trump and his attorneys advising that Pence should “disregard certified electoral college votes from Georgia and other purportedly ‘contested’ states” when Congress met to certify the election results on Jan. 6, 2021, prosecutors said.
AP file
Ray Smith
A Georgia-based lawyer, Smith was involved in multiple lawsuits challenging the results of the 2020 election in Georgia. He also gathered witnesses to provide testimony before Georgia legislative subcommittee hearings held in December 2020 on alleged issues with the state’s election.
Robert Cheeley
A Georgia lawyer, Cheeley presented video clips to legislators of election workers at the State Farm Arena in Atlanta and alleged the workers were counting votes twice or sometimes three times. He spoke to the lawmakers after Giuliani.
Michael Roman
A former White House aide who served as the director of Trump’s election day operations, Roman was involved in efforts to put forth a set of fake electors after the 2020 election.
Shawn Still
He was one of 16 Georgia Republicans who signed a certificate falsely stating that Trump had won the state and declaring themselves the state’s “duly elected and qualified” electors. Still was the finance chairman for the state GOP in 2020 and served as a Georgia delegate to the Republican National Convention that year. He was elected to the Georgia state Senate in November 2022 and represents a district in Atlanta’s suburbs.
Stephen Cliffgard Lee
Prosecutors say Cliffgard Lee, a pastor, worked with others to try to pressure Georgia election worker Ruby Freeman and her daughter after Trump and his allies falsely accused them of pulling fraudulent ballots from a suitcase during the vote count. Lee allegedly knocked on Freeman’s door, frightening her and causing her to call 911 three times, prosecutors said in a court filing last year.
Harrison William Prescott Floyd
Also known as Willie Lewis Floyd III, he served as director of Black Voices for Trump, and is accused of recruiting Lee to arrange a meeting with Freeman and Chicago-based publicist Trevian Kutti.
Trevian C. Kutti
Prosecutors allege Kutti, a publicist, claimed to have high-level law enforcement connections. They say Freeman met with Kutti at a police precinct, where she brought Floyd into the conversation on a speakerphone. Prosecutors say Kutti presented herself as someone who could help Freeman but then pressured her to falsely confess to election fraud.
Cathy Latham
Latham was one of 16 Georgia Republicans who signed a certificate falsely stating that Trump had won the state and declaring themselves the state’s “duly elected and qualified” electors. She was also chair of the Coffee County Republican Party. She was at the county elections office for much of the day on Jan. 7, 2021, and welcomed a computer forensics team that arrived to copy software and data from the county’s election equipment in what the secretary of state’s office has said was “unauthorized access” to the machines.
Coffee County, Georgia via AP
Scott Graham Hall
An Atlanta-area bail bondsman, Hall was allegedly involved in commandeering voting information that was the property of Dominion Voting Systems from Coffee County, a small south Georgia jurisdiction. Also charged in the scheme were Powell, Latham and former county elections supervisor Misty Hampton.
Misty Hampton
She was the elections director in Coffee County. Hampton was present in the county elections office on Jan. 7, 2021, when a computer forensics team copied software and data from the county’s election equipment. She also allowed two other men who had been active in efforts to question the 2020 election results to access the elections office later that month and to spend hours inside with the equipment.
Read the Trump indictment in Georgia
Falling gas prices helped ease inflation in November, but some costs kept rising
WASHINGTON — U.S. inflation ticked down again last month, with cheaper gas helping further lighten the weight of price increases in the United States.
At the same time, the latest data on consumer inflation showed that prices in some areas — services such as rents, restaurants and auto insurance — continued to rise uncomfortably fast.
House approves impeachment inquiry into Biden as Republicans rally behind probe; president says effort ‘baseless’
WASHINGTON — The House on Wednesday authorized the impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, with every Republican rallying behind the politically charged process despite lingering concerns among some in the party that the investigation has yet to produce evidence of misconduct by the president.
The 221-212 party-line vote put the entire House Republican conference on record in support of an impeachment process that can lead to the ultimate penalty for a president: punishment for what the Constitution describes as “high crimes and misdemeanors,” which can lead to removal from office if convicted in a Senate trial.
Oversight Committee Chairman†James Comer, R-Ky., speaks during the House Oversight Committee impeachment inquiry hearing into President Joe Biden, Thursday, Sept. 28, 2023, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
Jacquelyn Martin
Oversight Committee Chair James Comer, R-Ky., seated right, talks with Ranking Member Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., before the House Oversight Committee begins an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, Thursday, Sept. 28, 2023, on Capitol Hill in Washington. Seated left is Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
Jacquelyn Martin
Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, speaks during the House Oversight Committee impeachment inquiry hearing into President Joe Biden, Thursday, Sept. 28, 2023, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
Jacquelyn Martin
Ranking Member Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., second right top, speaks on the Democratic side of the aisle, as the House Oversight Committee begins an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, Thursday, Sept. 28, 2023, on Capitol Hill in Washington. Oversight Committee Chair James Comer, R-Ky., is seated top right. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
Jacquelyn Martin
Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., speaks with Ranking Member Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., during the House Oversight Committee impeachment inquiry hearing into President Joe Biden, Thursday, Sept. 28, 2023, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
Jacquelyn Martin
Witnesses are sworn in before the House Oversight Committee impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, Thursday, Sept. 28, 2023, on Capitol Hill in Washington. From left are, Jonathan Turley, Shapiro Chair for Public Interest Law at the George Washington University Law School, Eileen O'Connor, former Assistant Attorney General at the Department of Justice, Bruce Dubinsky, with Dubinsky Consulting, and Michael Gerhardt, Burton, Craige Distinguished Professor of Jurisprudence, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,(AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
Jacquelyn Martin
Jonathan Turley, Shapiro Chair for Public Interest Law at the George Washington University Law School, speaks during the House Oversight Committee impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, Thursday, Sept. 28, 2023, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
Jacquelyn Martin
An asteroid will pass in front of the bright star Betelgeuse to produce a rare eclipse visible to millions
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — One of the biggest and brightest stars in the night sky will momentarily vanish as an asteroid passes in front of it to produce a one-of-a-kind eclipse.
The rare and fleeting spectacle, late Monday into early Tuesday, should be visible to millions of people along a narrow path stretching from central Asia's Tajikistan and Armenia, across Turkey, Greece, Italy and Spain, to Miami and the Florida Keys and finally, to parts of Mexico.
50 images of the universe from the Hubble Space Telescope
The Pillars of Creation (1995)
Perhaps Hubble's most popular image involves part of the Eagle Nebula known as the "Pillars of Creation." The Eagle Nebula is a star-forming region of the Milky Way, which means a cold cloud of gas and dust dense enough for gravity to take hold and collapse material into new stars. Ultraviolet light from these newborn stars erodes the nebula away, leaving the beautifully sculpted pillars in the image.
NASA, J. Hester, P. Scowen (Arizona State University)
The Eagle Nebula in Infrared (2015)
The dense gas and dust of the Eagle Nebula are opaque in visible light but transparent to infrared. Hubble's infrared vision of the Pillars of Creation reveals they are harboring additional baby stars swaddled in gas.
NASA, ESA, Hubble Heritage Team
Prelude to a Cosmic Explosion (1995)
In the early 1800s, the unremarkable star Eta Carinae in the southern constellation Carina grew suddenly brighter, briefly becoming the second-brightest star in the entire sky before fading. Later observations, including the one that produced this famous Hubble image, showed that Eta Carinae is actually two very massive stars shedding matter in two huge lobes of gas. Astronomers think these stars are unstable and will eventually explode in a supernova.
NASA, Jon Morse (University of Colorado)
The Giant Next Door (2015)
Andromeda Galaxy (also known as M31) is the closest large galaxy to our Milky Way, near enough for astronomers to distinguish individual stars. This Hubble mosaic of a portion of Andromeda is the biggest image the telescope has made (constructed of 7,398 individual exposures!), containing over 100 million visible stars. Like the Milky Way, M31 is a spiral galaxy, with many of its brightest stars clustered in arms winding out from the galactic center.
NASA, ESA, University of Washington, PHAT team
Jupiter's Auroras (2016)
Auroras are caused when electrically charged particles cascade into a planet's atmosphere. On Earth, these are the northern and southern lights visible at high latitudes; Jupiter, being a much bigger planet with a huge magnetic field, has proportionally larger auroras. Hubble captured Jupiter's auroras using its ultraviolet instrument, and this picture was constructed by overlaying the UV image over a visible-light photo.
NASA, ESA, J. Nichols (University of Leicester)
Galaxies in Collision (2010)
The Antennae Galaxies are a pair of galaxies in the process of colliding, a slow process taking hundreds of millions of years. This picture combines images from NASA's Great Observatories—Hubble (visible light), the Spitzer Infrared Observatory (infrared), and the Chandra X-ray Observatory (X-rays)—highlighting how these premiere space telescopes work together. The collision between the galaxies is producing new stars at a fast rate.
NASA, CXC/SAO/J. DePasquale
It's Full of Galaxies (1996)
In 1996, astronomers pointed HST at a small unremarkable spot on the sky nearly empty of stars and took pictures for 10 days to get a clear view deep into the cosmos. The 342 photos assembled from the project make up the Hubble Deep Field Survey and contain roughly 3,000 individual galaxies, some billions of light-years away. In fact, nearly everything you see in this image is a galaxy, revealing the diversity and evolution of galaxies over the history of the universe.
NASA, ESA, Robert Williams, Hubble Deep Field Team (STScI)
Echoes from an Explosion (2010)
In early 1987, astronomers spotted a new bright point of light in the nearby galaxy in the Large Magellanic Cloud: Supernova 1987A, the explosion of a massive star. Because it is the closest supernova in modern times, astronomers have been able to track the aftereffects of the explosion. This 2010 Hubble image shows expanding bubbles of matter blasted away from the dying star, producing beads of light where the material slammed into clumps of gas in the surrounding region.
NASA, ESA, K. France (University of Colordo, Boulder)
The First Image of Another Star (1996)
Despite the power of modern telescopes like HST, most stars other than the sun are too far away to be anything but points of light. However, Hubble captured the first details on another star in 1996: the red giant Betelgeuse, which is part of the constellation Orion. As the diagram shows, Betelgeuse is so huge it's no longer spherical; in 2020, material ejected from the star blocked enough of its light that it dimmed visibly.
NASA, ESA, Andrea Dupree (Harvard-Smithsonian CfA), Ronald Gilliland (STScI)
Seeing With Gravity's Telescope (2018)
Galaxy clusters are the largest objects in the universe held together by gravity and can consist of thousands of individual galaxies. Abel 370 has so much mass (mostly in the form of mysterious invisible dark matter) that its gravity focuses light from more distant galaxies, producing magnified and distorted images of objects too far to be seen ordinarily. You can see some of those magnified galaxies in this HST image, appearing as smeared arcs of light.
NASA, ESA, A. Koekemoer (STScI)
Five Moons for Tiny Pluto (2012)
Before the New Horizons probe arrived on Pluto in 2015, astronomers turned HST to the dwarf planet to look for any potential hazards. This 2012 image shows Pluto's five moons, including a fifth previously unknown moon, now known as Styx. Hubble was also used to discover the moons Nix, Hydra, and Kerberos, which are too small to be seen with less powerful telescopes.
NASA, ESA, M. Showalter (SETI Institute)
A Dying Star and an Hourglass (1996)
Smaller stars like our sun don't explode as supernovas but shed material as they die. Some of these form "planetary nebulas" like the Hourglass Nebula, which forms two interlinked bubbles of gas. The eerie effect here is because Hubble doesn't "see" color the way people do, so the image colors (and many other images in this slideshow) correspond to the presence of particular types of atoms or molecules: green for hydrogen, red for nitrogen, and blue for ionized oxygen.
NASA, Raghvendra Sahai and John Trauger (JPL), WFPC2 science team
The Horsehead Nebula in Infrared (2013)
The Horsehead Nebula in the constellation of Orion is one of the most popular objects to look at through backyard telescopes, where it looks like a horse-shaped shadow against background stars. This HST infrared image shows newborn stars hiding inside the billowing nebula gas. Like the Eagle Nebula, the Horsehead is being eroded by ultraviolet light from nearby young, hot stars.
NASA, ESA, Hubble Heritage Team
A Jet from a Black Hole (2010)
M87 is a giant elliptical galaxy (meaning: it has mostly old stars and no spiral arms) in the Virgo Cluster of galaxies. Like nearly every galaxy we know of, M87 harbors a huge black hole near its center, which was imaged by the Event Horizon Telescope in 2019. This set of HST pictures shows a jet of matter blasted out by that black hole, stretching out farther than the visible edges of M87.
NASA, ESA, D. Batcheldor and E. Perlman (Florida Institute of Technology), Hubble Heritage Team
The Colorful Crab (2020)
The Crab Nebula is the remains of a star that went supernova and which was observed across the world in 1054 C.E. This image combines optical light from Hubble (in yellow), infrared light from Spitzer (in red), and X-ray light from Chandra (in blue), revealing the complex internal structure of this centuries-old supernova remnant. Matter continues to collide inside the nebula even after all this time, explaining the tendrils and bubbles you see in the picture.
NASA, ESA, J. DePasquale (STScI), R. Hurt (Caltech/IPAC)
A Flickering Cosmic Candle (2013)
RS Puppis is a star known as a Cepheid variable: aging stars that pulsate, with predictable fluctuations in their light. This southern hemisphere star pulsates roughly every six weeks, creating "light echoes" in the surrounding gas. Early 20th-century astronomer Henrietta Swan Leavitt discovered that Cepheid variables have a connection between the frequency of fluctuations and their brightness, which allowed Edwin Hubble to make the first measurement of the distance to Andromeda Galaxy.
NASA: ESA, Hubble Heritage Team
Saturn's Rings and Hexagon (2019)
As part of the giant planet monitoring program, HST captured this beautiful image of Saturn. Not only are the planet's famous rings shown clearly, but you can also see the hexagonal storm at Saturn's north pole, a feature not identified before the Cassini spacecraft mission.
NASA, ESA, A. Simon, M.H. Wong, OPAL Team
Northern and Southern Lights, Saturn Style (2010)
Earth's seasons are caused by the fact that our axis is tilted, so the north pole points toward the sun in the summer and away in winter. Saturn has an even stronger axial tilt, but Hubble captured this ultraviolet image near the planet's equinox so that both poles were nearly in view at once. That allows us to see the auroras—northern and southern lights—in a single image, a rare occurrence.
NASA, ESA, Jonathan Nichols (University of Leicester)
A Supernova in the Galactic Outskirts (1999)
The bright star-light object toward the lower-left corner of this image is Supernova 1994D, on the outskirts of the galaxy NGC 4526. It's a Type Ia supernova, which is the explosion of a white dwarf (the remnant of the core of a star like our sun). Astronomers use Type Ia supernovas to measure the expansion of the universe because they're bright enough to be seen from billions of light-years away.
NASA, ESA, Hubble Key Project Team, High-Z Supernova Search Team
A Galactic Whirlpool (2005)
The Whirlpool Galaxy (M51) is a favorite galaxy for many people, and this Hubble image shows why. As a "grand design" spiral galaxy, the spiral arms are clearly defined, dotted with bright young blue stars and pink clouds where new stars are forming. Gravitational interactions with the smaller galaxy likely drive this star formation at the right side of the image.
NASA, ESA, S. Beckwith (STScI), Hubble Heritage Team
A Ring of Bright Matter (2013)
The Ring Nebula is a planetary nebula, the shedded material from a dying sun-like star. We see this system from an angle that shows the ring structure, but this 2013 HST image reveals the blue part of the nebula is an oblong bubble that passes through the ring. At the Ring Nebula's very center, you can make out a white dot that is a white dwarf, the remnant of the original star's core.
NASA, ESA, Hubble Heritage Team
Gonggong and Xiangliu
The two largest known objects beyond Neptune in our solar system are Eris and Pluto; the third-largest is Gonggong, discovered in 2007 and finally named in 2019. These HST images show how astronomers discovered its moon Xiangliu by comparing archival pictures and looking for how things changed. Gonggong, like other distant solar system worlds, is too small to be anything but a pinpoint of light in most telescopes, requiring observatories of Hubble's caliber.
NASA, ESA, C. Kiss, J. Stansberry
What's Deeper than Deep? Ultra Deep (2004)
Following up on the earlier Hubble Deep Field Survey, astronomers upped the ante and conducted the Hubble Ultra Deep Field Survey, looking at one relatively empty patch of the sky for roughly 1 million seconds (nearly 12 full days). This longer exposure revealed 10,000 galaxies, including some of the most distant yet discovered.
NASA, ESA, N. Pirzkal, HUDF Team (STScI)
The Invisible Made Visible (2009)
The Bullet Cluster is actually two galaxy clusters caught in the act of collision, where the "bullet" is a shockwave in X-ray emitting hot gas (from Chandra, shown in red). The visible light Hubble data allowed astronomers to measure where the mass from each cluster was concentrated (shown in blue). They found most of that mass was separated from the hot gas, meaning it's made up of invisible matter; this is one of the best direct measurements of the mysterious dark matter that makes up most of the matter in the cosmos.
Quasars are supermassive black holes that heat up matter until it glows brightly. In these HST pictures, gravity from a foreground galaxy focuses and splits light from more distant quasars, making one quasar look like four. This effect is known as strong gravitational lensing, and astronomers use it to measure how far those quasars are from Earth by timing when each image flickers.
NASA, ESA, S.H. Suyu, K.C. Wong
The Southern Pinwheel Galaxy (2014)
The Southern Pinwheel Galaxy (M83) is a "flocculent" spiral galaxy, meaning its spiral arms look fleecy thanks to the copious amounts of gas and dust they contain. This high-resolution image of M83 reveals the processes of star formation and cavities where stars exploded in supernovas.
NASA, ESA, Hubble Heritage Team
A Stellar Shockwave (2002)
The Great Nebula of Orion is a star-forming nebula that can be seen on a dark night without a telescope in Orion's "sword." A young hot star in that nebula, LL Ori, is pumping out streams of charged particles known as stellar wind at speeds high enough to produce a shockwave in the surrounding gas. Though we can't see the whole thing, this shockwave surrounds the star, though not in a spherical shape.
NASA, Hubble Heritage Team
A Cosmic Penguin (2013)
The two galaxies making up the object Arp 142 collided, their mutual gravity pulling one of the galaxies into a shape resembling a galactic penguin. This penguin was once a spiral galaxy like ours, but the encounter has disrupted its shape and driven the production of new stars. The second object is an elliptical galaxy, which consists of older stars and little gas, which may be why its shape hasn't been roughed up as much by the collision.
These two images show disks of dust and ice around newborn stars, which are thought to resemble the Kuiper Belt in the outer part of our own solar system. These protoplanetary disks, as they are called, form from the leftovers of the host star's birth. In these cases, there might be planets orbiting closer in, but even Hubble's capabilities aren't good enough to see something so relatively tiny.
NASA, ESA, P. Kalas (University of California, Berkeley)
Ancient Stellar Jewels (2015)
Globular clusters are roughly spherical collections of tens of thousands of stars, including some of the oldest stars we know of. The cluster 47 Tucanae (located in the southern constellation Tucan) is part of the Milky Way but is older than our galaxy by several billion years.
NASA, ESA, Hubble Heritage Team
The Tarantula Nebula in Infrared (2014)
The Large Magellanic Cloud is the largest satellite galaxy of the Milky Way, and home to Supernova 1987A. It's also home to the huge star-forming region known as the Tarantula Nebula. Hubble's infrared camera revealed a staggering 800,000 stars and protostars inside the Tarantula, of which you can see more than a few in this image.
NASA, ESA, E. Sabbi
An Inbound Comet (2017)
The comet C/2017 K2 PANSTARRS (or more simply K2) was first seen by Hubble in 2017 when it was past the orbit of Saturn. Comets are made of rock and ices (including water ice, carbon dioxide ice, and others) that form the distinctive tails when heated by the Sun. Even at that distance, sunlight was enough to melt the outer layers of K2, making it the most distant active comet ever seen.
NASA, ESA, and D. Jewitt (UCLA)
Our Next-Nearest Galactic Neighbor (2019)
The Milky Way is one of three large galaxies in the small cluster known as the Local Group. The other two are Andromeda (the biggest of the group) and Triangulum (M33), a small spiral. Despite the fact that it's probably as old as its larger neighbors, Triangulum is producing new stars at a fairly high rate, which intrigues astronomers.
NASA, ESA, M. Durbin, J. Dalcanton, B.F. Williams (University of Washington)
A Galactic Rose (2011)
Galaxy collisions may seem violent, but they're one major way small galaxies grow into bigger ones, as they merge together. And undoubtedly galactic collisions are beautiful, as in with the galaxies of Arp 273, which HST captured to commemorate its 21st anniversary. As with other examples of interacting galaxies we've seen, Arp 273 shows star formation spurred on by each galaxy's gravitational tug on the other.
NASA, ESA, Hubble Heritage Team
A Cap of Clouds (2019)
When Voyager 2 visited Uranus in 1986, the pictures it returned to Earth showed a green-blue planet nearly unblemished by clouds. By contrast, this recent Hubble image shows a stormy cap of clouds over Uranus' pole. Since Uranus has the most extreme axial tilt of all planets—essentially tipped on its side—it also experiences the most extreme seasons, which may drive weather in ways we don't fully understand yet.
NASA, ESA, A. Simon, M. Wong, A. Hsu
Blowing Stellar Bubbles (2016)
All stars—our sun included—produce "wind" in the form of electrically charged particles blowing off the surface. The star at the center of the Bubble Nebula is 45 times more massive than the sun, and its wind has carved out a cavity in the surrounding gas seven light-years across. The nebula itself is the beautifully illuminated shape made where the wind collides with that gas.
NASA, ESA, Hubble Heritage Team
A Supernova on the Face of a Spiral Galaxy (2018)
Spiral galaxy NGC 1015 has a striking appearance, in large part, because we see it almost perfectly "face on." The central part of the galaxy is marked by a bar of stars and gas, surrounded by a ring of matter. But this Hubble image also fortuitously includes Supernova 2009ig, a Type Ia supernova caused by the explosion of a white dwarf.
Most shapes in space are round or blobby, but the planetary nebula HD 44179 is boxy, giving it the popular name the Red Rectangle. This 2004 Hubble image shows that the fundamental shape of the matter being shed by a dying star is more like an X, which explains why the material looks rectangular from a distance.
NASA, ESA, Hans Van Winckel, Martin Cohen
A Moon for Makemake (2016)
Makemake is one of the dwarf planets in the outer solar system discovered within the past 20 years. Until 2015, astronomers couldn't tell if it had a satellite or not, but this Hubble image revealed a faint moon that might have been hiding in Makemake's glow previously. Named "S/2015 (136472) 1" and nicknamed "MK 2," the moon's presence helps astronomers measure important properties about Makemake, such as its mass.
NASA, ESA, A. Parker
Yeeting a Star From the Galaxy
This picture of a star looks downright mundane until you realize it's speeding out of our galaxy at a breakneck 1.6 million miles per hour. HE 0437-5439 is known as a "hypervelocity" star, and it was likely part of a multiple-star system that drifted too close to the Milky Way's supermassive black hole. The dance of gravity stripped HE 0437-5439 from its companions and kicked it out of the galaxy entirely.
NASA, ESA, O. Gnedin, W. Brown
The Sombrero Galaxy (2003)
The Sombrero Galaxy (M104) is another of Hubble's greatest hits, thanks to its very bright disk surrounded by a ring of dust. Because we see the galaxy nearly edge-on, it's hard to distinguish a lot of its features. However, astronomers have used this Hubble image to identify 2,000 globular clusters of stars in and around the galaxy.
NASA, ESA, Hubble Heritage Team
A Dusty Red Planet (2018)
Mars can feel downright mundane compared to many of the other cosmic objects in Hubble's catalog, but astronomers have turned the telescope to look at our planetary neighbor many times in the past 30 years. This 2018 image shows the Red Planet with a winter cap of clouds over the north pole. You can also see Mars' two small potato-like moons, Phobos and Deimos, in the right and lower side of the photo, respectively.
At first look, Stephan's Quintet seems to be five galaxies in collision. However, it turns out only three are actually interacting, and the bright galaxy in the upper left corner is seven times closer to Earth than the others. This optical illusion highlights the fact that occasionally things can look close together when they're actually very far apart, despite space being very big and mostly empty.
NASA, ESA, and the Hubble SM4 ERO Team
The Beauty of a Dying Star (2004)
The Cat's-Eye Nebula may be another planetary nebula, but each star like our sun seems to die in its own beautiful and spectacular fashion. This nebula, in particular, is strikingly complex, with concentric layers of shed material overlapping bubbles and an almost spiral-arm structure.
NASA, ESA, HEIC, Hubble Heritage Team
A Breathtakingly Distant Galaxy (2016)
Galaxy GN-z11 just looks like a red blob in this HST image, but that's because it's a breathtaking 13.4 billion light-years away. Since the universe is only about 13.8 billion years old, this means GN-z11 formed about as early as any galaxy can exist. In fact, it was very bright blue 13.4 billion years ago, but as the light from it traveled, it got stretched into the red part of the spectrum, a phenomenon known as cosmic redshifting.
NASA, ESA, P. Oesch (Yale University)
A Most Peculiar Star (2004)
The star V838 Monocerotis (in the constellation Monoceros, or the Unicorn) brightened suddenly in 2002, then faded. Astronomers turned to HST to look at it and found an expanding shell of gas around the star. This image shows a Firefox-like swirl of material shed by the star, which was probably left over from an earlier outburst.
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