A US federal court has blocked President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs, in a major blow to a key part of his economic policies.

The Court of International Trade rules that the emergency law invoked by the White House does not give the president unilateral authority to impose tariffs on nearly every country.

It also blocks the separate levies the US imposed on China, Mexico and Canada.

Within minutes the Trump administration lodged an appeal, saying: “It is not for unelected judges to decide how to properly address a national emergency”.

So there will be no change at the border just yet, business reporter Katie Silver writes – as the decision goes through the appeals process.

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of five small businesses that import goods from abroad.

SpaceX’s Starship rocket roared into space from Texas on Tuesday but spun out of control about halfway through its flight without achieving some of its most important testing goals, bringing fresh engineering hurdles to CEO Elon Musk’s increasingly turbulent Mars rocket program.

The 400-foot tall (122 meter) Starship rocket system, the core of Musk’s goal of sending humans to Mars, lifted off from SpaceX’s Starbase, Texas, launch site, flying beyond the point of two previous explosive attempts earlier this year that sent debris streaking over Caribbean islands and forced dozens of airliners to divert course.

For the latest launch, the ninth full test mission of Starship since the first attempt in April 2023, the upper-stage cruise vessel was lofted to space atop a previously flown booster – a first such demonstration of the booster’s reusability.

But SpaceX lost contact with the 232-foot lower-stage booster during its descent before it plunged into the sea, rather than making the controlled splashdown the company had planned.

Starship, meanwhile, continued into suborbital space but began to spin uncontrollably roughly 30 minutes into the mission. The errant spiraling came after SpaceX canceled a plan to deploy eight mock Starlink satellites into space – the rocket’s “Pez” candy dispenser-like mechanism failed to work as designed.

“Not looking great with a lot of our on-orbit objectives for today,” SpaceX broadcaster Dan Huot said on a company livestream.

Musk was scheduled to deliver an update on his space exploration ambitions in a speech from Starbase following the test flight, billed as a livestream presentation about “The Road to Making Life Multiplanetary.” Hours later, he had yet to give the speech and there was no sign that he intended to do so.

In a post on X, Musk touted Starship’s scheduled shutdown of an engine in space, a step previous test flights achieved last year. He said a leak on Starship’s primary fuel tank led to its loss of control.

“Lot of good data to review,” he said. “Launch cadence for next 3 flights will be faster, at approximately 1 every 3 to 4 weeks.”

SpaceX has said the Starship models that have flown this year bear significant design upgrades from previous prototypes, as thousands of company employees work to build a multi-purpose rocket capable of putting massive batches of satellites in space, carrying humans back to the moon and ultimately ferrying astronauts to Mars.

Risk-Tolerant

The recent setbacks indicate SpaceX is struggling to overcome a complicated chapter of Starship’s multibillion-dollar development. But the company’s engineering culture, widely considered more risk-tolerant than many of the aerospace industry’s more established players, is built on a flight-testing strategy that pushes spacecraft to the point of failure, then fine-tunes improvements through frequent repetition.

Starship’s planned trajectory for Tuesday included a nearly full orbit around Earth for a controlled splashdown in the Indian Ocean to test new designs of its heat shield tiles and revised flaps for steering its blazing re-entry and descent through Earth’s atmosphere.

But its early demise, appearing as a fireball streaking eastward through the night sky over southern Africa, puts another pause in Musk’s speedy development goals for a rocket bound to play a central role in the U.S. space program.

NASA plans to use the rocket to land humans on the moon in 2027, though that moon program faces turmoil amid Musk’s Mars-focused influence over U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration.
Mishap Probe

Federal regulators had granted SpaceX a license for Starship’s latest flight attempt four days ago, capping a mishap investigation that had grounded Starship for nearly two months.

The last two test flights – in January and March – were cut short moments after liftoff as the vehicles blew to pieces on ascent, raining debris over parts of the Caribbean and disrupting scores of commercial airline flights in the region.

The Federal Aviation Administration expanded debris hazard zones around the ascent path for Tuesday’s launch.

The previous back-to-back failures occurred in early test-flight phases that SpaceX had easily achieved before, in a striking setback to a program that Musk, the billionaire entrepreneur who founded the rocket company in 2002, had sought to accelerate this year.

Musk, the world’s wealthiest individual and a key supporter of U.S. President Donald Trump, was especially eager for a success after vowing in recent days to refocus his attention on his various business ventures, including SpaceX, following a tumultuous foray into national politics and his attempts at cutting government bureaucracy.

Closer to home, Musk also sees Starship as eventually replacing the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket as the workhorse in the company’s commercial launch business, which already lofts most of the world’s satellites and other payloads to low-Earth orbit.

Source: Reuters

Nepali sherpa Kami Rita, also known as “Everest Man”, has scaled Mount Everest for the 31st time, breaking his own record for the most climbs up the world’s tallest peak.

The 55-year-old, who was guiding a group of Indian army officials up the mountain, reached its 8,849m summit at 04:00 local time on Tuesday (23:15 GMT Monday).

“Kami Rita Sherpa needs no introduction. He is not just a national climbing hero, but a global symbol of Everest itself,” expedition organiser Seven Summit Treks said in a statement.

Kami Rita first summited Everest in 1994 guiding a commercial expedition and has made the peak almost ever year since.

He scaled it twice some years, like in 2023 and 2024.

His closest competitor for the Everest record is fellow Nepali sherpa Pasang Dawa, who scaled the peak 29 times – the latest attempt made last week.

Kami Rita has previously told media how his climbs are just work.

“I am glad for the record, but records are eventually broken,” he told AFP in May last year. “I am more happy that my climbs help Nepal be recognised in the world.”

Earlier this month, Kami Rita posted snippets of life on Everest, including one of the Puja ceremony, a Tibetan Buddhist ritual done before Everest expeditions to pray for a safe and successful climb.

Kami Rita’s feat comes one week after British mountaineer Kenton Cool summited Everest for the 19th time, also breaking his own record for the most climbs for a non-sherpa.

More than 500 people and their guides have climbed Everest successfully this climbing season, which is coming to an end.

Nepal issued more than 1,000 climbing permits this season – including for Everest and other peaks – according to its tourism department.

The number of Everest summit attempts has soared in recent years. However this has led to concerns around overcrowding and environmental impact.

Last year, authorities introduced a rule requiring climbers to clear up their own poo and bring it back to base camp to be disposed of.

(BBC News)