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Source: Trump to Make English Official US Language

FILE PHOTO: US President Donald Trump speaks during a press conference at the White House, February 27, 2025 in Washington, D.C., US Carl Court/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: US President Donald Trump speaks during a press conference at the White House, February 27, 2025 in Washington, D.C., US Carl Court/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo
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Source: Trump to Make English Official US Language

FILE PHOTO: US President Donald Trump speaks during a press conference at the White House, February 27, 2025 in Washington, D.C., US Carl Court/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: US President Donald Trump speaks during a press conference at the White House, February 27, 2025 in Washington, D.C., US Carl Court/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo

President Donald Trump will sign an executive order to make English the official US language, a source with knowledge of the matter said on Friday.
The source did not provide a timing for the signing of the order, first reported by the Wall Street Journal.
The United States has never had an official language at the federal level but the issue has been problematic for certain states, Reuters reported.
The use of Spanish in public life has sparked controversy over the years, including in Texas, where a state senator in 2011 demanded that an immigrant rights activist speak English not his native Spanish at a legislative hearing.
That rekindled a decades-old debate over whether it is proper to speak Spanish in Texas, which was once a part of Mexico and, before that, a part of the Spanish Empire.
The issue has been painful for many older Mexican-American Texans who recall being punished for speaking Spanish in school in the 1950s.

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Bear Mauls Man to Death in Bulgaria

A bear smells a brick of ice on a hot afternoon at the Veermata Jijabai Bhosale Udyan and Zoo in Mumbai on May 10, 2026. (Photo by Punit PARANJPE / AFP)
A bear smells a brick of ice on a hot afternoon at the Veermata Jijabai Bhosale Udyan and Zoo in Mumbai on May 10, 2026. (Photo by Punit PARANJPE / AFP)
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Bear Mauls Man to Death in Bulgaria

A bear smells a brick of ice on a hot afternoon at the Veermata Jijabai Bhosale Udyan and Zoo in Mumbai on May 10, 2026. (Photo by Punit PARANJPE / AFP)
A bear smells a brick of ice on a hot afternoon at the Veermata Jijabai Bhosale Udyan and Zoo in Mumbai on May 10, 2026. (Photo by Punit PARANJPE / AFP)

A bear mauled to death a man at Vitosha, a mountainous region just outside Bulgarian capital Sofia, police told AFP on Sunday.

"The findings of the medical examiner and a wildlife expert show that marks found on the body are those of a female bear accompanied by her cub," a Sofia police spokesperson said.

Police did not disclose the age of the victim, but Bulgarian media reported him as being in his 30s.

His body was located Saturday afternoon near a road connecting two chalets in the northwestern part of the mountainous area around half an hour by road out of Sofia rising to 2,295 meters (7,500 feet) and located about 30 minutes from Sofia.

Vitosha is a popular hiking destination for residents of the Sofia, being home to a range of wild animals, including deer, roe deer, wild boars and wolves.

The area is believed to be home to around a dozen bears.

The last recorded case of a person killed by a bear in Bulgaria dates back to 2010, in the Rhodope Mountains in the country's south.

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Saudi Arabia: Imam Turki Reserve Authority Reaffirms Commitment to Protecting Endangered Species

The Imam Turki bin Abdullah Royal Nature Reserve Development Authority logo
The Imam Turki bin Abdullah Royal Nature Reserve Development Authority logo
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Saudi Arabia: Imam Turki Reserve Authority Reaffirms Commitment to Protecting Endangered Species

The Imam Turki bin Abdullah Royal Nature Reserve Development Authority logo
The Imam Turki bin Abdullah Royal Nature Reserve Development Authority logo

The Imam Turki bin Abdullah Royal Nature Reserve Development Authority reaffirmed its commitment to protecting endangered wildlife species through a comprehensive ecosystem of environmental programs and initiatives aimed at preserving biodiversity, restoring ecological balance, and developing natural habitats within the reserve, coinciding with Endangered Species Day.

The authority emphasized that its efforts align with the objectives of Saudi Vision 2030 and the Saudi Green Initiative through a scientific and field-based approach focused on wildlife protection, the reintroduction of endangered species, and enhancing environmental sustainability within one of the Kingdom’s largest royal reserves.

These efforts contribute to preserving the national natural heritage for future generations.

The authority explained that the reserve is home to rich biodiversity, including several wildlife species of high environmental value. Environmental protection and monitoring teams continue to track wildlife, limit practices that negatively affect natural habitats, and implement specialized breeding and rehabilitation programs aimed at enhancing the survival and growth of threatened species in their natural environments.

The authority stressed that protecting endangered species is not only an environmental responsibility, but also an investment in ecosystem sustainability and quality of life.

It added that the development of vegetation cover, protection of natural resources, and promotion of community awareness constitute key pillars of its environmental strategy.

The impact of these efforts has been reflected in increased biodiversity and improved natural habitats within the reserve in recent years.

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Spacecraft to Probe How Earth Fends Off Raging Solar Winds

This photograph shows the Smile spacecraft (gold) fixed to a Vega-C rocket adaptor (black cone) on 25 March 2026, in Kourou, French Guiana, in preparation for liftoff from Europe's Spaceport. (Photo by ESA / AFP)
This photograph shows the Smile spacecraft (gold) fixed to a Vega-C rocket adaptor (black cone) on 25 March 2026, in Kourou, French Guiana, in preparation for liftoff from Europe's Spaceport. (Photo by ESA / AFP)
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Spacecraft to Probe How Earth Fends Off Raging Solar Winds

This photograph shows the Smile spacecraft (gold) fixed to a Vega-C rocket adaptor (black cone) on 25 March 2026, in Kourou, French Guiana, in preparation for liftoff from Europe's Spaceport. (Photo by ESA / AFP)
This photograph shows the Smile spacecraft (gold) fixed to a Vega-C rocket adaptor (black cone) on 25 March 2026, in Kourou, French Guiana, in preparation for liftoff from Europe's Spaceport. (Photo by ESA / AFP)

A joint European-Chinese spacecraft is set to blast off Tuesday to investigate what happens when extreme winds and giant explosions of plasma shot out from the Sun slam into Earth's magnetic shield.

Particularly fierce solar storms can knock out satellites, threaten astronauts -- and create colorful auroras in the skies of northern and southern latitudes.

To find out more about this little-understood space weather, the van-sized SMILE spacecraft is tasked with making the first-ever X-ray observations of Earth's magnetic field.

The spacecraft is scheduled to launch on a Vega-C rocket at 0352 GMT on Tuesday from Europe's spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, on the northeastern coast of South America.

Lift-off was originally planned for April 9, but was postponed due to a technical issue.

SMILE -- or the Solar Wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer -- is a joint mission between the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

"What we want to study with SMILE is the relationship between the Earth and the Sun," explained Philippe Escoubet, an ESA scientist working on the project.

Solar wind is a stream of charged particles shot out from the Sun. Sometimes this wind is kicked up into a huge storm by massive eruptions of plasma called coronal mass ejections.

Hurtling at around two million kilometers (1.2 million miles) an hour, these powerful blasts take a day or two to reach Earth. When they arrive, Earth's magnetic field acts as a shield, deflecting most of the charged particles.

However, during particularly intense events, some particles can penetrate our atmosphere, where they have the potential to take out power grids or communication networks. They also create dazzling auroras known as the northern or southern lights, AFP reported.

During the worst geomagnetic storm on record in 1859, bright auroras were seen as far south as Panama -- and telegraph operators around the world were given electric shocks.

Solar winds can now also pose a danger to satellites orbiting Earth, as well as astronauts sheltering inside space stations.

Given these threats, scientists want to learn more about space weather, so the world can better forecast and prepare for big blasts in the future.

To help with this endeavor, the SMILE mission plans to detect the X-rays emitted when charged particles from the Sun interact with the neutral particles of Earth's upper atmosphere.

The spacecraft will observe this phenomenon from several important locations, including the magnetopause -- where the magnetic shield deflects solar particles.

It will also soar above the Earth's poles, where X-ray photons are visible, according to Dimitra Koutroumpa of France's CNRS institute who is working on the mission.

On Tuesday, the spacecraft will be placed 700 kilometers above Earth before heading on an extremely elliptical orbit.

SMILE will be at an altitude of 5,000 kilometers when it flies over the South Pole, where it will transmit data to a research station in Antarctica called Bernardo O'Higgins.

But the spacecraft will be 121,000 kilometers above Earth when it swings over the North Pole, to take in a far wider view over a longer period of time.

Among other things, this will allow the mission to "observe the northern lights non-stop for 45 hours at a time for the first time ever", according to the ESA.

The spacecraft has four scientific instruments, including a UK-built X-ray imager, as well as a UV imager, ion analyzer and magnetometer all made by the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

SMILE is expected to start collecting data just an hour after it is put into orbit.

The mission is designed to run for three years, but could be extended if all goes well.