170 – Breaking News & Latest Updates 2026
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Wes Davis

Wes Davis

Former Weekend Editor

Former Weekend Editor

    More From Wes Davis

    Wes Davis
    Wes Davis
    Overcoming your bad shot with robotics.

    Shane Wighton from the Stuff Made Here YouTube channel has made a lot of basketball-themed projects, ranging from a curved backboard guaranteeing most shots to a cable-actuated goal that zips around to compensate for badly aimed lobs.

    But my favorite is this one: A backboard that tilts and pivots to guide the ball in and has facial recognition to deny the shot to those you deem unworthy.

    Wes Davis
    Wes Davis
    Watch someone build “The Great Wave Off Kanagawa” using Lego bricks.

    This Lego build of Hokusai’s 1831 woodblock print, designed by Lego artist Jumpei Mitsui and assembled here in a 10-minute time-lapse that Boing Boing pointed to today, was recently featured in the Seattle Art Museum.

    Correction: This story originally referred to Hokusai’s work as a painting, but in fact, it is a woodblock print. We regret the error.

    Wes Davis
    Wes Davis
    The NFL is reportedly working out a deal for a stake in ESPN.

    Rumors have said Disney wants the NBA and NFL to become part owners of its sports network. A Friday New York Post report indicates that’s close to reality for the NFL, which is said to be in “advanced talks” to gain an equity stake in ESPN.

    According to The Athletic, ESPN would take over NFL Media, which includes the NFL Network. That’s as Disney plans to make ESPN a streaming service in 2025.

    Wes Davis
    Wes Davis
    The Peregrine Moon lander made it to lunar distance.

    Astrobotic, the company that makes the lander, published an update Friday saying the lander had traversed 238,000 miles, putting it as far from the Earth as our Moon.

    Peregrine’s post-launch propulsion malfunction means it’s not actually on the lunar surface as planned. Astrobotic wrote yesterday that the lander was “about 242,000 miles” out, and should return to “likely burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere.”

    A graphic showing the Peregrine lander’s trajectory and position as of Friday, relative to the moon, with a curved line of dashes representing the moon’s path and another showing the lander’s expected trajectory back toward Earth.
    Where the Peregrine lander was and where it wasn’t.
    Image: Astrobotic
    Wes Davis
    Wes Davis
    “We have planes all over the world that have issues that nobody has found.”

    So said Cornell Beard, the president of a union chapter representing Wichita factory workers for Spirit AeroSystems, according to The Wall Street Journal.

    Spirit makes fuselages for Boeing’s 737 Max planes, and according to people the Journal interviewed, the company overworks its employees and ignores safety issues — a problem that may have led to the Alaska Airlines mishap that saw a hole blown in a mid-flight plane earlier this month.

    Wes Davis
    Wes Davis
    NASA has freed the Bennu asteroid sample after three months of trying.

    After its successful OSIRIS-REx mission to set an unmanned craft down on and retrieve a sample from the Bennu asteroid, two stubborn screws kept NASA’s scientists out of the canister. Now the screws are out, and there’s video to prove it.

    The US space agency says it will release a catalog of the sample to scientists this spring.

    Wes Davis
    Wes Davis
    The Billy Mitchell Donkey Kong saga has ended in a settlement.

    Mitchell settled his defamation lawsuit against Twin Galaxies, the organization that dispossessed him of his Donkey Kong and Pac-Man record-holder status in 2018. Courthouse News reported that the settlement is confidential.

    Mitchell sued Twin Galaxies for defamation in 2020 over its accusations that he’d used an emulator to cheat. Guinness World Records, which also removed Mitchell’s records, later reinstated them when it couldn’t prove he’d cheated.