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Melania Trump Meets with Patients, Visits Garden at Washington Children’s Hospital

US First Lady Melania Trump takes part in an activity with children during a visit at Children's National Hospital in Washington, DC on July 3, 2025. (AFP)
US First Lady Melania Trump takes part in an activity with children during a visit at Children's National Hospital in Washington, DC on July 3, 2025. (AFP)
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Melania Trump Meets with Patients, Visits Garden at Washington Children’s Hospital

US First Lady Melania Trump takes part in an activity with children during a visit at Children's National Hospital in Washington, DC on July 3, 2025. (AFP)
US First Lady Melania Trump takes part in an activity with children during a visit at Children's National Hospital in Washington, DC on July 3, 2025. (AFP)

US First Lady Melania Trump visited with sick patients at Children’s National hospital in Washington on Thursday as the children made Fourth of July arts and crafts ahead of the holiday.

Trump, continuing a tradition of support by first ladies for the pediatric care center, also stopped by the hospital's rooftop “healing” garden she dedicated during the first Trump administration to first ladies of the United States.

The first lady decorated rocks for the garden with the children, drawing a red heart on one. A few kids played with stretchy slime while Trump engaged them in questions.

“Wow, that’s a big slime!” she told one child that was more focused on stretching the sticky goo.

Trump gave each of the children gift bags with blankets and teddy bears that had shirts reading, “Be Best,” her campaign focused on children’s well-being.

She quizzed the kids on their favorite sports, what music they like and how they’re feeling. Trump also took an informal poll, asking the kids whether they like chocolate and ice cream.

Most of the hands shot up, including the first lady’s.

“I like it too,” she said.

She then took the children out to the Bunny Mellon Healing Garden, where they placed small American flags and patriotically-colored pinwheels into the soil.

The garden, decked out in decorations for Independence Day on Friday, was named to honor Rachel “Bunny” Mellon, a friend of first lady Jacqueline Kennedy.

Mellon was a philanthropist and avid gardener who designed the Rose Garden and other White House gardens during the Kennedy administration.

The garden was dedicated to America’s first ladies because of their decades-long support for the hospital and its patients, including a traditional first lady visit at Christmastime that dates back to Bess Truman.

Trump, along with chief White House groundskeeper Dale Haney, inspected a new yellow rose bush donated by the White House and planted earlier in the week at the hospital garden.

After, the first lady visited the heart and kidney unit at the hospital and met privately with a 3-year-old patient.

Later Thursday, the first lady joined President Donald Trump in the Oval Office where they met with Edan Alexander, the last living American hostage in Gaza, who was released in May.

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Varieties

‘Fingerprints’ of Black Hole’s Event Horizon Detected for First Time

An actual image of the black hole where scientists looked for a ring of light, which is matter and radiation circling at extreme speeds around a region of darkness representing the black hole. (Event Horizon Telescope collaboration)
An actual image of the black hole where scientists looked for a ring of light, which is matter and radiation circling at extreme speeds around a region of darkness representing the black hole. (Event Horizon Telescope collaboration)
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‘Fingerprints’ of Black Hole’s Event Horizon Detected for First Time

An actual image of the black hole where scientists looked for a ring of light, which is matter and radiation circling at extreme speeds around a region of darkness representing the black hole. (Event Horizon Telescope collaboration)
An actual image of the black hole where scientists looked for a ring of light, which is matter and radiation circling at extreme speeds around a region of darkness representing the black hole. (Event Horizon Telescope collaboration)

Scientists have detected the "fingerprints" of a black hole's event horizon -- the boundary from which nothing can escape -- for the first time, according to research published on Wednesday.

The discovery was made by studying ripples in space-time called gravitational waves that were created when two black holes violently smashed into each other.

A black hole's event horizon is known as the "point of no return" because not even light can avoid being swallowed into its darkness.

This has made them incredibly difficult to learn anything about.

However, there is one event of such cataclysmic violence that it could offer a chance to glimpse this extreme phenomenon -- when two black holes merge into one.

When this cosmic death spiral occurs, it shoots gravitational waves across the universe which scientists have been detecting for the last decade.

For the new research published in Nature, an international team of researchers analyzed data from the strongest gravitational wave ever recorded, known as GW250114, detected by the LIGO observatory in January 2025.

By isolating the last burst of waves -- known as "direct waves" -- from this black hole merger, the scientists said they were able to extract information from closer to an event horizon than ever before.

"This black hole horizon concept normally appears in science fiction," lead study author Sizheng Ma of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Canada told AFP.

"But now we are really able to touch the region around the horizon with gravitational data," he added.

"Sometimes I cannot believe this is really happening."

- Causing a stir -

The last stage of two black holes merging is like a spoon stirring a glass of water, Sizheng Ma explained.

The resulting swirl in space creates the ripple of gravitational waves that travel at the speed of light in all directions.

If the metaphorical spoon is stirring close enough to the black hole's event horizon, "this offers us a chance to decode the physics around that region", Sizheng Ma said.

By supporting the theory of general relativity, the results "proved that Einstein was correct again," he added.

The scientists emphasized that more research was needed to decipher what can be gleaned about event horizons using this method.

But they did detect information about how black holes twist space around themselves as they rotate -- a phenomenon known as "frame dragging".

"This is similar to pushing a glass into a table and twisting it, so that the tablecloth winds up around it," Maximiliano Isi, a gravitational wave astrophysicist at Columbia University, told AFP.

In the future, the team of scientists hope to find signs of tiny changes known as quantum fluctuation.

"In this way, we can really probe this near horizon region to look for a new physics," including searching for a deviation from general relativity, Sizheng Ma said.

- Reaction mixed -

Experts not involved in the study urged caution.

Francesco Sannino, an Italian theoretical physicist who studies black holes, told AFP it was "compelling analysis" but needed to be checked by other researchers.

Still, it was "striking" that the scientists were able to show that gravitational waves carried the event horizon's "fingerprints," he said.

The astrophysicist Isi described the work as "tantalizing".

"More generally, understanding the physics of black holes and their mergers is important as it might shed light on how space and time are woven together at a more fundamental level," he told AFP.

Sean McWilliams, an astrophysicist at West Virginia University, was skeptical that the gravitational wave frequency analyzed by the scientists was actually "dictated" by the event horizon.

For this reason, "the actual observed signal doesn't really tell us anything about the horizon or the other properties directly related to it", he told AFP.

Sizheng Ma said McWilliams's statement was "not correct," suggesting he had conflated two different aspects in the paper.

"There is often considerable resistance and criticism in the early stages of promoting a new concept," he said, adding he is working on another paper to "clarify these confusions and possible misinterpretations".

Varieties

Asteroid Zooming Past Earth on Saturday Visible to Stargazers

FILE PHOTO: A nighttime view of Earth, derived from satellite images taken daily over the past decade, capturing human activity on the planet through the emissions of artificial light, is seen in this image released on April 8, 2026. Michala Garrison/NASA Earth Observatory/Handout via REUTERS
FILE PHOTO: A nighttime view of Earth, derived from satellite images taken daily over the past decade, capturing human activity on the planet through the emissions of artificial light, is seen in this image released on April 8, 2026. Michala Garrison/NASA Earth Observatory/Handout via REUTERS
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Asteroid Zooming Past Earth on Saturday Visible to Stargazers

FILE PHOTO: A nighttime view of Earth, derived from satellite images taken daily over the past decade, capturing human activity on the planet through the emissions of artificial light, is seen in this image released on April 8, 2026. Michala Garrison/NASA Earth Observatory/Handout via REUTERS
FILE PHOTO: A nighttime view of Earth, derived from satellite images taken daily over the past decade, capturing human activity on the planet through the emissions of artificial light, is seen in this image released on April 8, 2026. Michala Garrison/NASA Earth Observatory/Handout via REUTERS

A large asteroid that will zoom harmlessly past Earth on Saturday will be visible to stargazers using a small telescope or large binoculars, the European Space Agency announced Wednesday.

The asteroid will come within 2,560,000 kilometers of Earth at 1114 GMT on Saturday, which is more than six times the distance between the Earth and the Moon.

Called (152637) 1997 NC1, the asteroid will be speeding along at nearly nine kilometers a second, posing no threat to Earth as any chance of an impact has been ruled out.

Discovered in 1997, the asteroid is estimated to be between 750 and 1,650 meters wide, according to calculations based on how much sunlight it reflects.

However other estimates suggest it could be smaller, AFP quoted the ESA as saying in a statement.

"A close approach to Earth by an object this size only occurs every few years, although this time the bright nearby Moon might impede its observability at closest approach," Juan Luis Cano of the ESA's Planetary Defense Office said in a statement.

For stargazers with telescopes or binoculars, the asteroid will be visible in parts of the Northern Hemisphere as it approaches, almost everywhere as it speeds past Earth, and only from the Southern Hemisphere as it departs.

But this depends if people are in areas of the world where the sky is dark enough as it passes.

Varieties

Think Tank: Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei Face High Risk of Severe Haze this Year

People stop by a cafe with murals painted on its facade in the Arab Street district of Singapore on June 16, 2026. (Photo by Roslan RAHMAN / AFP)
People stop by a cafe with murals painted on its facade in the Arab Street district of Singapore on June 16, 2026. (Photo by Roslan RAHMAN / AFP)
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Think Tank: Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei Face High Risk of Severe Haze this Year

People stop by a cafe with murals painted on its facade in the Arab Street district of Singapore on June 16, 2026. (Photo by Roslan RAHMAN / AFP)
People stop by a cafe with murals painted on its facade in the Arab Street district of Singapore on June 16, 2026. (Photo by Roslan RAHMAN / AFP)

Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei face a high risk of severe haze this year due to hot and dry weather conditions, biofuel demand and economic pressures, a research institute said Wednesday.

The Singapore Institute of International Affairs said it was the second time it had issued a red risk rating since launching its Haze Outlook report in 2019. The previous red risk rating was in ⁠2023, Reuters reported.

Here are some ⁠details:

August to September is the peak danger period for haze in the Southeast Asian region, driven by the El Niño and Indian Ocean Dipole weather phenomena, the report said.

The ⁠return of El Niño is expected to create a longer and stronger dry season at a time when fire preparedness could be adversely affected by economic uncertainty and cost pressures.

The SIIA said rising costs of fertilizer and fuel as a result of the Iran war could lead to unsustainable activity such as the use ⁠of ⁠fire rather than machinery to clear land and dispose of waste.

Land use could also intensify as demand for biofuels rises due to energy supply disruptions.

"This trend will continue even if the US-Iran agreement holds, as countries now want energy independence," said SIIA associate director Khor Yu-Leng.

ASEAN cooperation and sustainable land management will be critical to reducing risks, the report said.