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NASA Faces $80,000 Claim After Space Debris Hit Family Home

This artist's illustration courtesy of Blue Origin obtained October 25, 2021, shows the core module of Orbital Reef. Handout BLUE ORIGIN/AFP/File
This artist's illustration courtesy of Blue Origin obtained October 25, 2021, shows the core module of Orbital Reef. Handout BLUE ORIGIN/AFP/File
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NASA Faces $80,000 Claim After Space Debris Hit Family Home

This artist's illustration courtesy of Blue Origin obtained October 25, 2021, shows the core module of Orbital Reef. Handout BLUE ORIGIN/AFP/File
This artist's illustration courtesy of Blue Origin obtained October 25, 2021, shows the core module of Orbital Reef. Handout BLUE ORIGIN/AFP/File

An American family is claiming more than $80,000 from NASA after a small piece of debris fell from space and smashed through the roof of their Florida home, a law firm said Friday, AFP reported.

The problem of space trash has risen in tandem with increased spatial traffic, and NASA's response could set a precedent for how future claims are handled, law firm Cranfill Sumner said in a statement.

On March 8, the object weighing just 700 grams hit Alejandro Otero's home in Naples, Florida, making a hole in the roof.

NASA later confirmed it was part of a cargo pallet of used batteries that was released from the International Space Station as waste in 2021.

Instead of fully disintegrating before falling to Earth, a section remained intact when it reentered the atmosphere, the US space agency said.

Otero's son was at the house at the moment of impact, according to the law firm, which said that NASA has six months to respond to its claim.

"My clients are seeking adequate compensation to account for the stress and impact that this event had on their lives," said lawyer Mica Nguyen Worthy.

"They are grateful that no one sustained physical injuries from this incident, but a ‘near miss’ situation such as this could have been catastrophic.

"There could have been serious injury or a fatality."

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Chili Paste Heats Up Dishes at Northeastern Tunisia’s Harissa Festival

Chahida Boufaied, owner of Dar Chahida Lel Oula, prepares the Harissa in her house in Nabeul, Tunisia, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Ons Abid)
Chahida Boufaied, owner of Dar Chahida Lel Oula, prepares the Harissa in her house in Nabeul, Tunisia, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Ons Abid)
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Chili Paste Heats Up Dishes at Northeastern Tunisia’s Harissa Festival

Chahida Boufaied, owner of Dar Chahida Lel Oula, prepares the Harissa in her house in Nabeul, Tunisia, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Ons Abid)
Chahida Boufaied, owner of Dar Chahida Lel Oula, prepares the Harissa in her house in Nabeul, Tunisia, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Ons Abid)

For years, Tunisians have been picking bright red peppers, combining them with garlic, vinegar and spices and turning them into a saucy spread called harissa. The condiment is a national staple and pastime, found in homes, restaurants and food stalls throughout the coastal North African nation.

Brick-red, spicy and tangy, it can be scooped up on bread drizzled with olive oil or dabbed onto plates of eggs, fish, stews or sandwiches. Harissa can be sprinkled atop merguez sausages, smeared on savory pastries called brik or sandwiches called fricassées, The Associated Press reported.
In Nabeul, the largest city in Tunisia’s harissa-producing Cap Bon region, local chef and harissa specialist Chahida Boufayed called it “essential to Tunisian cuisine.”
“Harissa is a love story,” she said at a festival held in honor of the chili paste sauce in the northeastern Tunisian city of Nabeul earlier this month. “I don’t make it for the money.”
Aficionados from across Tunisia and the world converged on the 43-year-old mother’s stand to try her recipe. Surrounded by strings of drying baklouti red peppers, she described how she grows her vegetables and blends them with spices to make harissa.
The region’s annual harissa festival has grown in the two-plus years since the United Nations cultural organization, UNESCO, recognized the sauce on a list of items of intangible cultural heritage, said Zouheir Belamin, the president of the association behind the event, a Nabeul-based preservation group. He said its growing prominence worldwide was attracting new tourists to Tunisia, specifically to Nabeul.
UNESCO in 2022 called harissa an integral part of domestic provisions and the daily culinary and food traditions of Tunisian society, adding it to a list of traditions and practices that mark intangible cultural heritage.
Already popular across North Africa as well as in France, the condiment is gaining popularity throughout the world from the United States to China.
Seen as sriracha’s North African cousin, harissa is typically prepared by women who sun-dry harvested red peppers and then deseed, wash and ground them. Its name comes from “haras” – the Arabic verb for “to crush” – because of the next stage in the process.
The finished peppers are combined it with a mixture of garlic cloves, vinegar, salt, olive oil and spices in a mortar and pestle to make a fragrant blend. Variants on display at Nabeul’s Jan. 3-5 festival used cumin, coriander and different spice blends or types of peppers, including smoked ones, to create pastes ranging in color from burgundy to crimson.
“Making harissa is an art. If you master it, you can create wonders,” Boufayed said.