Space tourism success - Western heatwave continues - Cuba’s large protests

As Oregon's Bootleg fire continues to grow, it recently burned an additional eight miles across a voltage power line corridor, threatening a major power grid, Path 66, that connects Oregon and California. The presence of wildfires has put pressure on California’s electrical system, leading to a Stage 2 power-grid emergency, which is just a step away from rolling blackouts.
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Charles Smith, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Medford, Ore., said the fire was especially concerning because Oregon’s fire season had only just begun. “There’s concern because of how early this is starting, and how far it has grown within a relatively short amount of time,” he said.
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The megafire in Oregon was just one hot zone across the western United States as a “dangerous heat wave” over the weekend was expected to continue into Tuesday, according to the National Weather Service. It is the third heat wave to hit the region so far this summer.

Denver police on Friday seized weapons and a significant amount of narcotics from two rooms at The Maven Hotel. [An anonymous source] said it was more than a dozen guns and numerous rounds of ammunition. The hotel is a block from Coors Field, where thousands are expected at the Home Run Derby on Monday and the All-Star Game on Tuesday.
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Denver police refused to rule out the possibility of a mass shooting plot during a Sunday news conference [despite the FBI's statement that there is no reason to believe it was a threat directed at the All-Star Game]. Three of the four suspects have lengthy criminal histories in Colorado.
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Previously, law enforcement sources [said] they feared a “Las Vegas-style shooting” because of the number of weapons and ammunition in the hotel rooms, as well as the vantage point from a balcony, which would overlook potentially large crowds. One of the men who was arrested posted on Facebook about wanting to “go out in a big way."

The protests exceeded frustrations of food lines and power scarcities, venturing into a challenge to the police state itself. Witnesses said Cuban security personnel deployed tear gas and other forms of force to disperse crowds, using vehicles to detain dozens of people.
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The demonstrations were so large that President Miguel Díaz-Canel, who succeeded Raúl Castro this year as first secretary of the Communist Party, called on Cuba’s “revolutionary” citizens to take to the streets. “We are prepared to do anything,” he said in a national address. “We will be battling in the streets.” He blamed the United States for agitating the population.
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The protests underscore the risks the Cuban government took by opening the nation of 11 million more broadly to the Internet in 2019. Activists have used social media to amplify their dissent, particularly after the arrest last year of Denis Solís, a Havana rapper and government critic.

The latest Marvel film scored $80 million at the domestic box office. In addition, it tallied $78 million from international ticket sales. For the first time since March 2020, the total domestic box office has collected more than $100 million in ticket sales, according to data from Comscore. Over the weekend around 81% of theaters were open to the public.
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Walt Disney also revealed that it garnered more than $60 million globally from sales of the film through Disney+ Premier Access. Previously, Disney has remained silent on how its streaming service’s same-day offering impacted theatrical releases. The amount captured on Disney+ shows that this can be a viable option for the brand in the future.
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“Whether or not the Disney+ earnings should be considered successful is almost impossible to objectively measure right now,” Shawn Robbins, chief analyst at Boxoffice.com, said. “That’s not only due to virtually non-existent comparison points, but also the long-term impact regarding the degradation of down-stream ancillary revenues.

Virgin Galactic invited a crowd of guests to the launch, including customers with reservations for future flights (they’re paying $250,000 a seat for the trip). One friend of Branson’s, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, was in attendance. Virgin Galactic is aiming to launch two more crewed test flights before beginning full commercial service in 2022.
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[The flight] took off from New Mexico and flew just above the boundary of space, where the four passengers and two pilots experienced about four minutes of weightlessness. The flight focused on “cabin and customer experience objectives,” a statement said, which include evaluating comfort and what the cabin feels like with a full crew.
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VSS Unity's achieved altitude [qualifies as outer space] by standards set by the U.S. military, the Federal Aviation Administration and NASA, which set the boundary at 50 miles. However, it is below the Kármán line, another popularly recognized boundary, which begins at an altitude of 62 miles.