Houston police detail large stolen vehicle bust, and says numbers are trending down  ABC13 Houston

Lucas County cyclosporiasis cases trending down amid regional outbreak  WTVG

Why Hrithik Roshan And Kangana Ranaut's Decade-Old Feud Is Trending Again  NDTV

‘I’m not liking the way we’re trending’: Hosts debate growing their own food amid safety fears  MyNorthwest.com

Sean McVay Believes Aaron Donald Is Trending Toward Return To Rams  FOX Sports

1. The next Xbox could play every Xbox game ever made  The Verge
2. Microsoft is bringing Xbox 360 games to PC  The Verge
3. Xbox Disc to Digital Arrives This Month for Xbox One and Series X  TechPowerUp
4. Rumor: Xbox to Continue Physical Game Discs Support  VGChartz
5. Report: Microsoft to bring Xbox 360 games to "Xbox PCs", handhelds and Project Helix  Digital Foundry

1. Next year’s iPhone Pro models will have larger screen sizes, per leak  9to5Mac
2. 6 Things We Already Know About the 2028 iPhone  MacRumors
3. iPhone 20: Rumor has it Apple is prepping a radical redesign  Mashable
4. Glass-heavy iPhone 20 will borrow from the iPhone Air and boost its cooling  AppleInsider
5. Apple is preparing huge changes. Leak confirms when it will arrive iPhone Ultra even revolutionary iPhone Pro  Letem světem Applem

1. Google tests new features designed to make the Google Messages app easier to use  PhoneArena
2. Google Messages will let you customize the shortcuts grid  9to5Google
3. Google Messages tests a full-screen attachment view and customizable grid  Android Authority
4. I spent years ignoring these Google Messages settings; now I use them daily  Android Police
5. Google Messages Could Soon Get a Better Search Experience  androidheadlines.com

1. Microsoft Denies New Tracking Service in Windows 11  TechPowerUp
2. Windows quality: an update on the commitment we made in March  Windows Blog
3. Microsoft CVP explains how Windows 11 will be optimized for 8GB RAM devices  Windows Central
4. Microsoft Promises Better Windows 11 Memory Efficiency  TechPowerUp
5. Windows 11’s next big priority: Making 8GB PCs less painful to use  PCWorld

1. OnePlus 15 and more have fully sold out in the US following shutdown  9to5Google
2. OnePlus is gone, but its true successor is already in my pocket  PhoneArena
3. Are OnePlus Phones Still Safe To Use?  bgr.com
4. OnePlus's US Exit Just Got a Lot More Real as Its Last Products Sell Out  androidheadlines.com
5. OnePlus says goodbye to Europe with a premium range featuring 16GB RAM and Snapdragon Elite  modernetdigital.cat

Technicians installed a commemorative plaque, seen in this July 28, 2026, photo, on NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. The plaque honors the legacy of Dr. Nancy Grace Roman, NASA’s first chief astronomer and one of the architects of the agency’s modern science program. It also features a memory card containing a total of 1,350,144 names submitted by people from across the globe, including astronauts from NASA’s Artemis II and Artemis III missions.

This observatory, scheduled to launch Aug. 30, 2026, will be able to block starlight to directly see exoplanets and planet-forming disks, complete a statistical census of planetary systems in our galaxy, and settle essential questions in the areas of dark energy, exoplanets, and infrared astrophysics.

Image credit: NASA/Jolearra Tshiteya

The start of August 2026 saw ongoing and new wildland fires burning in eastern Washington. West of Chelan, the Little Giant fire continued to produce heavy smoke, while a cluster of smaller fires farther east near Spokane affected tens of thousands of people.

The smoke from these and other fires poured east-northeast across the state and into Idaho, Montana, and several Canadian provinces on the morning of August 2, 2026, when NASA’s Terra satellite captured this image.

At that time, the Little Giant fire had burned more than 38,500 acres (15,600 hectares) and was zero percent contained, according to the fire’s incident management team. After lightning ignited the fire on July 15, gusting winds drove the blaze east to Lake Chelan, with spotting reaching the opposite side of the lake. Smoke from the fire was expected to cause unhealthy to very unhealthy air quality in Chelan to the east and unhealthy conditions in Leavenworth and Wenatchee to the south, according to a smoke outlook issued by the U.S. Interagency Wildland Fire Air Quality Response Program.

Meanwhile, the Spokane Area fires—which include the Old Trails fire, Fairview fire, and Autumn Lane fire—had burned around 5,400 acres (2,200 hectares) since igniting the day before. By the morning of August 3, that number had grown to more than 8,000 acres, according to InciWeb. Preliminary reports indicated more than 600 structures had been destroyed or damaged, and mandatory evacuation orders were in place for parts of Spokane County and Stevens County. Widespread smoke from these and the other fires in the state combined to produce very unhealthy air quality in parts of the two counties.

These fires were part of an active fire season fueled by persistent drought and extreme fire weather. Strong winds, high temperatures, and dry fuels led the National Weather Service to issue Washington’s first-ever “particularly dangerous situation alert” on July 31, a designation typically reserved for the most severe fire conditions.

Drought—declared in the state following a warm winter and low snowpack—left vegetation primed to burn. By the start of August, those conditions had helped fuel more than 1,000 fires that burned about 425,000 acres since the start of the year, the most since 2021, according to the Washington State Department of Natural Resources. Of those, 12 large fires remained active, together accounting for more than 200,000 acres burned.

The NASA Disasters Program has been activated to support agencies responding to the fires. The team will be posting maps and data products on its open-access mapping portal as new information becomes available.

NASA Earth Observatory image by Lauren Dauphin, using MODIS data from NASA EOSDIS LANCE and GIBS/Worldview. Story by Kathryn Hansen.

References & Resources

• InciWeb (2026, August 3) Little Giant Fire. Accessed August 3, 2026.
• InciWeb (2026, August 3) Spokane Area Fires. Accessed August 3, 2026.
• Spokane Regional Clean Air Agency (2026, August 3) Current Air Quality. Accessed August 3, 2026.
• U.S. Interagency Wildland Fire Air Quality Response Program (2026, August 3) Smoke Outlook: North Central Washington – Little Giant. Accessed August 3, 2026.
• Washington Governor Bob Ferguson (2026, August 1) Governor Ferguson declares statewide wildfire emergency, issues statewide burn ban. Accessed August 3, 2026.
• Washington State Department of Natural Resources (2026, July 31) With 10 Large Wildfires Burning Across 200,000 Acres and Extreme Fire Conditions Ahead, DNR Shores up Resources With The National Guard. Accessed August 3, 2026.

Every spring in Palestine, Texas, the wide-open fields around NASA’s Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility fill with students and faculty from across Louisiana. They arrive carrying sensors, laptops, and carefully engineered payloads they have spent months preparing.  The goal is to send their experiments to the edge of space and return with meaningful data, while reflecting NASA’s long-standing commitment to develop future scientists and engineers.

NASA’s student programs have long served as an entry point for hands-on exploration, connecting students to the agency’s missions and giving them direct exposure to real aerospace environments. Among these initiatives, the Louisiana Aerospace Catalyst Experiences for Students, also known as LaACES, provides a robust undergraduate introduction to scientific ballooning.

Just after dawn on May 19, student-crafted instruments lifted off smoothly from the flight line, notching the 74th and 75th launches in a long-running collaboration between the facility and Louisiana Space Grant Consortium. The 2026 LaACES campaign consisted of 11 payloads that were designed and built by nine Louisiana university teams — Louisiana State University, Northwestern State, Southeastern Louisiana State, McNeese State, Loyola University, and Southern University, as well as and one high school team, St. Joseph’s Academy, during the weeklong event.

The teams’ scientific objectives included a wide of research, such as atmospheric science, cosmic ray detection, thermal management, ultraviolet characterization, stratospheric wind analysis, and solar cell performance.

Before arriving in Texas, students advanced their mission concepts through a structured sequence of design reviews modeled after NASA’s engineering lifecycle. From preliminary design to flight readiness, each team defended technical decisions, refined their payloads, and demonstrated their readiness for launch.

Once cleared for flight by program directors Doug Granger and Aaron Ryan, who oversee the LaACES initiative, the students shifted their work to Palestine, Texas, where the Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility supported the 2026 LaACES campaign. Facility personnel provided daily weather briefings, performed helium fills for both latex balloons, and offered launch-line guidance to ensure safe and successful operations. “We enjoy being able to support the students’ launches here and hope to help them cultivate a love for ballooning,” said Hugo Franco, operations manager at the balloon facility.

The two flight trains of associated student payloads, LACES-74 and LACES-75, on May 19 marked the start of the program’s first launch window. The balloons, capable of supporting 7- to 9-pound payloads, ascended to near-space altitudes and were monitored using various communication and tracking systems. Both missions completed their flights successfully and were recovered roughly 60 miles north of the launch site near Ben Wheeler, Texas.

“My most memorable experience during the course of this year was seeing the plots for the first time post flight,” said Savannah Matlock, a Louisiana State University student. “When we saw the data behave in the way we’d expected it to, and saw the science we were able to demonstrate, it makes it all worth it. It’s a great feeling to see all of your hard work pay off.”

Following recovery, student teams analyzed their sensor data and environmental measurements and then presented their findings to balloon facility engineers and technicians along with faculty mentors and peers.

Programs like LaACES mirror the operational environment of NASA’s broader Scientific Balloon Program. NASA scientific balloons are more than just “weather balloons”: The reality is far more sophisticated. NASA Columbia Science Balloon Facility supports the launch, tracking, and recovery of large scientific balloons capable of carrying advanced research instruments to the edge of space. These flights support investigations in astrophysics, atmospheric science, planetary research, technology demonstrations, and more.

By placing students in this ecosystem, LaACES acts as a bridge between academic learning and national research operations. Students witness firsthand how scientific experiments are prepared, integrated, launched, tracked, and recovered — experiences that can reshape career paths and open doors to future opportunities within NASA, academia, and aerospace industries.

Funded by NASA’s National Space Grant College and Fellowship program, LaACES is a statewide program of the Louisiana Space Grant Consortium. Since its inception, LaACES has supported more than 500 students across 13 higher‑education institutions, launching over 60 balloon flights and roughly 135 unique payloads. As NASA continues to advance scientific discovery, programs like LaACES help ensure a strong pipeline of future innovators. For these Louisiana students, watching their payload rise into the sky is more than a technical milestone — it is a defining moment, a spark that turns curiosity into possibility.

Twice each day, tides ebb and flow through a maze of sandy channels, mudflats, and mangrove forests that flank the 88 islands and islets of Guinea-Bissau’s Bijagós Archipelago (Arquipélago dos Bijagós in Portuguese). Seen from above in this image from Nov. 28, 2025, the process leads to stark changes to the landscape: around low tide, intertidal mudflats and sandflats emerge from the sea, causing islands to grow significantly before shrinking again hours later.

Learn more about the region and its wildlife.

Text credit: Adam Voiland

Image credit: NASA/Lauren Dauphin, USGS

Spotify says Merlin, which represents more than 30,000 independent labels and distributors, has joined Universal Music Group in backing its upcoming AI-powered remix and covers product. The paid tool will let fans create AI-generated covers and remixes of participating artists’ music while ensuring artists opt in, receive credit, and are compensated.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott has paused new data center development until an audit has been completed.

The acquisition, which was first announced in June, brings Vibe.co into Walmart Connect, Walmart's connected TV advertising platform.

An analysis of the last seven years of Tesla earnings calls shows just little attention Musk pays to Tesla's car business.

Want to tap into the energy of 1,100+ startup founders, investors, and tech leaders descending on Boston for the Founder Summit 2026 on June 9? Host your own Side Event during “Founder Summit Week,” happening June 4-10!