hour

NEW YORK — After President Trump’s reported intervention, Paramount Pictures is set to distribute Brett Ratner’s “Rush Hour 4,” a project that Hollywood had eschewed after earlier sexual misconduct allegations against the director.

Paramount Pictures on Tuesday was in closing talks to distribute the film, according to a person close to the negotiations who requested anonymity because they weren’t authorized to announce a deal. Paramount would be stepping in to take a distribution fee on the film, not finance it.

In 2017, during the #MeToo movement, six women said Ratner sexually harassed them in a Los Angeles Times report. Warner Bros., which had a $450-million co-financing deal with his production company, severed ties with Ratner. Ratner, who denied the allegations, hasn’t produced a film this decade.

But on Sunday, Semafor reported that Trump personally requested Paramount take on “Rush Hour 4.” Paramount recently merged with Skydance in an $8-billion deal that required regulatory approval from the Trump administration. Trump has praised the studio’s new chair and chief executive, David Ellison, the son of Oracle executive chair and prominent Trump supporter Larry Ellison.

The White House didn’t immediately comment Wednesday.

Ratner had been shopping “Rush Hour 4” after Warner Bros., which released the three previous films in the franchise, passed on the project. The movie would reteam Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker in the action-comedy series launched in 1998, with sequels in 2001 and 2007.

Ratner has managed to get one other film made: a documentary on First Lady Melania Trump. Earlier this year, Amazon MGM Studios acquired the film for a reported $40 million. It’s set to open in theaters Jan. 30.

Coyle writes for the Associated Press.

Seasoned fitness coaches Mary Pelino and Lizzy Picardi met at their local powerlifting gym, where they instantly became friends in meet-cute fashion. The hours they spent together sparked the beginning of an idea: to open an inclusive, women-owned gym. After finding a space, Pelino and Picardi officially launched the small-but-mighty Rose City Barbell in the summer of 2022.

“Our mission from the beginning,” Pelino told me, “has been to make humans stronger. That includes everyone — women, men, any gender, from beginners to advanced lifters.” This is why Pelino designs the Monday through Friday barbell programming with modifications in mind: so that everyone can perform the same lifts, no matter their skill level.

I am self-conscious about my piddly strength, but when I walked into Rose City’s brick-lined main room, where there were daisies painted on the lilac-colored deadlift platforms, my lizard brain felt at ease. The gym was also stocked with a variety of inclusive, high-quality equipment, such as 15 to 55 pound specialty barbells, belts of all sizes, 10-pound bumper plates and fractional plates as light as a quarter pound.

That morning, I was greeted by my coach, Sionann, as well as my gym-mate, Davida, before preparing to work on our bench presses. We warmed up together, then performed a light set of bench presses, three sets of six. In between sets, I learned that Davida was a gallery owner, a mother of two, and like me, found Rose City through word-of-mouth. Pumping iron, as it turns out, is a social affair — especially when the classes, which are capped at eight, are this intimate.

“The beauty of the gym comes from the people who we spend time with,” said Picardi, which is why Rose City hosts an array of social events for the community, including clothing swaps, lettering classes and Friendsgiving potlucks. The gym also hosts seasonal mock meets where attendees compete in a setting that emulates the experience of a professional powerlifting meet, prizes and all.

After the main lift, we moved onto accessory work. Sionann gently corrected my form as I performed gorilla rows, instructing me to picture my arms as if they were chains. I pulled the dumbbells off the floor toward my hips, mimicking the movements of a majestic ape. By the end of the class, I did indeed feel like a stronger Homo sapien.

Parking: Plenty of street parking

Pricing: $45 per drop-in; $325 for 13 classes per month; $433 for unlimited classes plus gym access

LOCATED in the Baltic Sea is a crowd-free island with outdoor music festivals and ancient forests – and we bet you’ve never heard of it.

Hiiumaa in Estonia is an island home to several historic lighthouses and sprawling beaches.

It is Estonia’s second largest island, yet is home to less than 10,000 people.

But this led to the island, along with other West Estonia islands, joining the UNESCO biosphere programme area dubbed ‘Man and Biosphere, which means that the locals have lived sustainably alongside nature for hundreds of years.

And most of the time, the island is completely in the dark unless the moon and stars are glowing – as a result it also has no noise or light pollution.

Many people who travel to the island love it for its peace, including soothing sauna and walks in the forest.

Naturally, being an island, the destination also has “endless beaches” according to Hiiumaa.ee, such as Tõrvanina, Luidja and Ristna.

Ristna, in particular, is loved by surfers thanks to having the biggest waves in the Baltic Sea.

This spot is also where you will find on of the island’s historic lighthouses.

Ristna Lighthouse’s tower was completed in France at the workshop of Gustave Eiffel – the same person responsible for the Eiffel Tower.

Then it was brought across to Hiiumaa in pieces and then assembled to watch over the sea and ships in the region.

The lighthouse is still operational today, but is open to visitors during the summer.

Nearby is also Kõpu lighthouse, which is one of the oldest working lighthouses in the world.

Visitors can climb to the top of the lighthouse and see across the coastline.

If you happen to visit the island during the summer months, you can also explore The Lavender Farm, which is the northmost lavender farm in the world.

And rather unusually, it is located on the edge of a meteorite crater.

Visitors heading to the farm can see 20,000 lavender plants and the products produced using them, such as lavender jam, lavender spice and lavender micellar water.

For a longer walk in nature, then visitors can head to the ancient Kõpu Nature Reserve, which is located on the oldest part of the island.

The area has many rare plants and bird species.

The island also hosts a number of festivals throughout the year including the Ice Fish Festival in February which involves a number of winter-related activities on the ice and summer music festivals of jazz, folk and club music.

When it comes to food options, local dishes often include fish or lamb.

One top spot is IIUmeekk, which is located inside a quaint redhouse and overlooks a harbour.

Inside, dish options include sea trout with edamame beans, parsley and salted egg yolk or slow cooked porky belly, with tomato kimchi and polenta.

Make sure to check out their desserts as well, such as gingerbread tiramisu.

As for somewhere to stay, there are hotels scattered across the entire island.

For example, for £75 per night you could head to Kassari Holiday Resort which features bubble baths on the hotel’s roof terrace, access Kassari beach and family-friendly rooms.

Alternatively, you could head to Utoopia No. 9 for £70 a night.

The 19-room hotel is sat on Kirikulahe Bay and is inside a historic manor’s vodka kitchen.

The best way to get to Hiiumaa is by flying to the capital of Estonia – Tallinn.

Return flights from London in November cost from £37 and the flight takes under three hours.

From Tallinn you can either hop on another flight to Kärdla Airport, which takes 30 minutes.

Then you can jump on the ferry to Hiiumaa, which takes less than an hour.

Alternatively, you can hop on a coach from Tallinn, which takes just under four hours before catching the ferry.

Also in Estonia is a seaside city nicknamed the ‘summer capital’ by locals – with huge sandy beach and the sea hits 33C.

Plus, there is a tiny island in Estonia with white sandy beaches that’s the most child-friendly holiday destination in the world.

When it comes to knowing his way around Los Angeles, actor Martin Starr is an expert. Born in Santa Monica, Starr says his family moved around the region often. ”I lived in the Valley, Hollywood, Hancock Park, and ended up in Santa Monica again when I was 15,” Starr says.

Today, the actor known for his role in the HBO comedy “Silicon Valley” and films like “Knocked Up” and the “Spider-Man” franchise, lives in Miracle Mile. His latest television role is on Paramount+’s crime drama “Tulsa King,” where he plays Bodhi, a weed store owner who has become a trusted member of a mobster’s (Sylvester Stallone) crew. The show’s third season finale airs Nov. 23.

“What I love most about L.A. is the people and the friends I’ve made over the years,” Starr says. “Aside from that, L.A. has some of the best food in the world. There’s plenty of fancy, Michelin-star restaurants, but there are so many delicious, moderately-priced places in L.A., and those are my favorites.”

Starr, a foodie who co-founded the candy company Sweet Stash with musicians Ezra and Adeev Potash (The Potash Twins), says his ideal Sunday includes a walk on the beach, eating enchiladas and playing video games or reading at home.

9:30 a.m.: Sleep in, then hydrate

I’m a lazy weekend guy. I often have to wake up early for work so it’s nice to take a little time for myself on a Sunday. After we wake up, my wife (Alex Gehring, bassist of the band Ringo Deathstarr) makes coffee for herself. I start the day with a glass of water or a matcha, then we’ll probably roll to a restaurant for breakfast.

10:30 a.m.: Get some really good pancakes

One of my favorite breakfast places is John O’Groats on West Pico. They don’t just do a side of fruit. They do cantaloupe, specifically, and I’ve grown to love it. I wouldn’t have chosen cantaloupe as the fruit to go to in my morning, but it turns out cantaloupe is pretty darn good. They make their own biscuits, which are delicious. They have a variety of really good pancakes. They do a seven-grain granola pancake that I really like.

If we don’t go there, we’d go to another great breakfast spot called Met Her at a Bar. That place is really tasty. The guy who opened it met his wife at a bar. They’ve got great French toast, and they do a Thai-style fried chicken and waffles. I just love the fresh-squeezed orange juice in both places.

Noon: Take a walk with Betty White

After breakfast, we’d go on a walk with our dog and have a lazy stroll around the neighborhood. Our dog is an all-white pit bull and her name is Betty White. We’d walk up through Hancock Park. There are some really pretty houses there, and it’s nice to just walk around. I grew up in that neighborhood for a bit too. I went to Third Street [Elementary] School so I’m pretty familiar with the area.

1 p.m.: Devour enchiladas by the beach

Then we’d go down to the beach. It’s a bit of a drive, but one of my favorite restaurants is there because I spent so much of my time as a youth in Santa Monica and Venice. It’s called Cha Cha Chicken, and is by far, my favorite restaurant in L.A. It’s in Santa Monica, one block east from the water, where Pico dead ends into the beach. I’d order the jerk chicken enchiladas, which comes with a side of rice and beans, mixed together. There’s a little chopped salad that comes on the side, too, and I love the dressing. The enchiladas have a sweet and spicy combo of sauces on top that are so good. And then I get the spicy Cuban fries. I always ask for them extra crispy, and they put a little spicy salt on top. I went there so much as a kid that I became friends with the owner, Ricky Prado. He inherited the place from his parents and took over. He and I took a trip once to Florida, where he met my dad, as I’ve met his whole family because they all worked at the restaurant.

2:30 p.m.: Stroll on Santa Monica State Beach

Next, we’d go for a walk on the beach to enjoy the beauty and fresh ocean air. There’s a little road that veers off from Cha Cha Chicken, and the Marvin Braude Bike Trail is right there. The Santa Monica Pier is north of there, and going south is the shopping area of Venice Beach. You can see sidewalk shows and all the fun performers when you go.

4:30 p.m.: Post-traffic puzzles and video games

The traffic to get back home would probably be an hour. There, Alex would probably do some crossword puzzles while I read or play video games for a bit. We’d put on some jazz music in the background. Or maybe we’d just go hang out on the porch and enjoy the day. We’re lounge folk. So when we have the opportunity, we just enjoy reading and crossword puzzles. It’s a simple life. We brought the Midwest to Los Angeles. All I need is a rocking chair.

6 p.m.: Happy Hour calls

After that, we might hit Happy Hour at Uchi West Hollywood. My wife is from Austin and her favorite restaurant opened up a place in L.A., so we go there every once in a while for a nice meal. It’s Japanese, but focused on sushi. If you sit at the bar, you can get happy hour all night.

7:30 p.m.: Keep the happy hour going into dinner

We’d eat some of our favorite food. My wife loves a particular sake and I love Mitsu Mitsu, which has ritual zero proof gin, rosemary and yuzu honey. Our favorite dish is called hama chill. It’s got little slices of Mandarin orange over yellowtail fish, with a little bit of Thai chill on top, and sits in a ponzu sauce. My wife loves edamame and I don’t. But this place has the best edamame so I can’t help but enjoy it. Some of them are a bit crisp, and there’s lemon juice and salt on it. It is so tasty. They course things out so you can really take your time and enjoy everything.

9 p.m.: Dessert on and off screen

We’d probably come back home, have a little dessert and watch either “The Great British Baking Show” or “Below Deck,” a drama-packed look inside the world of private yachting. You also get a good view of the interesting people who rent these yachts, and whether they’re good tippers or not.

11 p.m.: Go to bed, after a laugh

We’d go to bed but probably stay up for an hour just talking and laughing before we actually fall asleep. That would be a perfect Sunday.

MINNEAPOLIS — Attorneys in the case of a man charged with killing a top Minnesota Democratic lawmaker and her husband said Wednesday that prosecutors have turned over a massive amount of evidence to the defense, and that his lawyers need more time to review it.

Federal prosecutor Harry Jacobs told the court that investigators have provided substantially all of the evidence they have collected against Vance Boelter. He has pleaded not guilty to murder in the killing of former Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, and to attempted murder in the shootings of state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife. Some evidence, such as lab reports, continues to come in.

Federal defender Manny Atwal said at the status conference that the evidence includes more than130,000 pages of PDF documents, more than 800 hours of audio and video recordings, and more than 2,000 photographs from what authorities have called the largest hunt for a suspect in Minnesota history.

Atwal said her team has spent close to 110 hours just downloading the material — not reviewing it — and that they’re still evaluating the evidence, a process she said has gone slowly due to the federal government shutdown.

“That’s not unusual for a complex case but it is lot of information for us to review,” Atwal told Magistrate Judge Dulce Foster.

Jacobs said he didn’t have a timeline for when the Department of Justice would decide whether to seek the death penalty against Boelter. The decision will be up to U.S. Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi.

Foster scheduled the next status conference for Feb. 12 and asked prosecutors to keep the defense and court updated in the meantime about their death penalty decision. She did not set a trial date.

Hortman and her husband, Mark, and Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, were shot by a man who came to their suburban homes in the early hours of June 14, disguised as a police officer and driving a fake squad car.

Boelter, 58, was captured near his home in rural Green Isle late the next day. He faces federal and state charges including murder and attempted murder in what prosecutors have called a political assassination.

Boelter, who was wearing orange and yellow jail clothing, said nothing during the nine-minute hearing.

Minnesota abolished capital punishment in 1911 and has never had a federal death penalty case. But the Trump administration is pushing for greater use of capital punishment.

Boelter’s attorney has not commented on the substance of the allegations. His motivations remain murky and statements he has made to some media haven’t been fully clear. Friends have described him as a politically conservative evangelical Christian, and occasional preacher and missionary.

Boelter claimed to the conservative outlet Blaze News in August that he never intended to shoot anyone that night but that his plans went horribly wrong.

He told Blaze in a series of hundreds of texts via his jail’s messaging system that he went to the Hoffmans’ home to make citizen’s arrests over what he called his two-year undercover investigation into 400 deaths from the COVID-19 vaccine that he believed were being covered up by the state.

But he told Blaze he opened fire when the Hoffmans and their adult daughter tried to push him out the door and spoiled his plan. He did not explain why he went on to allegedly shoot the Hortmans and their golden retriever, Gilbert, who had to be euthanized.

Hennepin County Atty. Mary Moriarty said when she announced Boelter’s indictment on state charges in August that she gave no credence to the claims Boelter had made from jail.

In other recent developments, a Sibley County judge last month granted Boelter’s wife a divorce.

Karnowski writes for the Associated Press.

On Aug. 12, 2022, Salman Rushdie was stabbed 15 times just as he was about to give a public lecture at the Chautauqua Institution in New York. Gravely wounded, Rushdie lost sight in his right eye. The following spring, he published “Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder,” which became a bestseller. His new book, “The Eleventh Hour: A Quintet of Stories,” is his first work of fiction since the attack that nearly killed him.

A showcase for his dynamic range, the book careens from social critique to ghost stories and dream-like fables. On a recent Zoom call, the writer discussed the consolations of fiction, Franz Kafka and the moral rot of the gilded class.

✍️ Author Chat

This is the first fiction you’ve written since “Knife.” How did you get that part of your creative brain going again?

I’m so happy to have fiction to talk about again! The attack kind of stopped the fiction juices from flowing. It’s as if my mind wouldn’t look back into the world of the imagination. But the moment I finished “Knife,” even before it came out, I was suddenly thinking about fiction again. It was as if by magic, I had to somehow sweep that subject away — out of the front of my mind, into the back of my mind — in order to let other stuff come in.

So you’re thrilled to be writing fiction again.

Yes. Memoir was never a form that attracted me. I don’t particularly want to write about myself.

Were all the stories in the new book written after the knife attack?

The two stores which bookend the collection were written earlier, although I did revise them. The first story I wrote for the book was “Late,” which is the first ghost story I’ve ever written.

That is actually astonishing to me. You have had elements of the supernatural and fantasy in your fiction, but not specifically a ghost story?

I’ve had that, but I haven’t had a ghost as a hero. And I must say, it became incredibly enjoyable to write.

I’d always wanted to write something arising out of my time at Cambridge, but I’d never really found a story. Then I had this idea of an encounter between this older academic and this young Indian woman who made friends because of their mutual love of India. When I sat down to write it, I found myself killing him. It took me completely by surprise. And the story became something else entirely.

There is in a few of these stories the character of the old don, the wizened, sage academic. Were these characters based on gray eminences you may have encountered at Cambridge?

I was lucky that my time at King’s College overlapped just a little bit with the great E.M. Forster. He was almost 90 and I was 19, but he was very approachable. He liked students to approach him and have a conversation. He would sometimes come and sit in the student common room with a little glass of beer and a little kind of flat cap. And when he discovered that I had a background in India, he became extra chatty because India had, of course, been unbelievably important to him in his life.

“Oklahoma” is perhaps the most dream-like story in the collection, about a young man searching for an older man, a famous writer, who has disappeared. It’s a dense piece, with a distinct Kafka influence.

There was an extraordinary exhibition at the Morgan Library here in Manhattan, of the manuscripts of Kafka. They had “The Trial,” “The Castle” and “Amerika,” an unfinished novel whose original title was “The Man Who Disappeared.” And that stuck with me. So I found myself writing a story in which Kafka makes a guest appearance, but it’s basically in the end about two men who disappear. “Oklahoma” is taken from “Amerika,” but Kafka never set foot in America, of course. It’s an Oklahoma of the mind and spirit, the place where you find satisfaction and fulfillment.

In “The Musician of Kahani,” about a marriage between a middle-class pianist and wealthy playboy, it feels like you are describing this new class of what you refer to as the “rich-rich,” the new vulgarian wealthy class. In the past, rich people were associated with glamour, but now it feels like a kind of boorish narcissism.

Yes, in the past, there was a kind of Gatsby-level glamour attached to the wealthy. One of the things that used to be the case in India after independence is that Gandhian ideas were very prominent. Indian weddings tended to be quite modest affairs. There was a Gandhian idea that you don’t flaunt your wealth. Well, that’s gone out the window, right? All the Gandhian notions are very much out of favor in India now. This has resulted in fantastically flamboyant weddings. And when you get to this level of the ultra-rich, there is a kind of surrealism on display.

Do you read much contemporary fiction?

I’m a huge admirer of Toni Morrison, if that’s contemporary enough. I’m also very keen on James McBride, especially “The Good Lord Bird” and “The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store,” for the range, the detail and the comedy in his writing, which is profound. I read two 700 page books this summer: Kiran Desai’s “The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny” — which took her 19 years to write and I think is a kind of masterpiece — and Nicholas Boggs’ biography of James Baldwin, which I loved.

(This Q&A has been edited for length and clarity.)

📰 The Week(s) in Books

Patti Smith’s new memoir, “Bread of Angels,” is “mesmerizing,” Leigh Haber writes for The Times. The book “deepens the mystery of who this iconic artist is and where her singular vision originated.”

Susan Straight’s new novel “Sacrament,” about a clutch of ICU nurses battling COVID in a San Bernardino hospital, “broadens the reader’s understanding of community beyond flesh-and-blood friends, family and neighbors,” according to Merdith Maran. “The love and care that flow within her community of characters draws the reader into their bright, tight circle, making the characters’ loved ones and troubles feel like the reader’s own.”

Robert Dowling’s new biography of actor and playwright Sam Shepard “expertly untangles the history of a man who contained multitudes,” writes Mark Athitakis.

Hamilton Cain has mixed emotions about Zadie Smith’s new collection of essays, “Dead and Alive,” writing that “the book’s finest pieces wrangle, in elegant prose, with humanity’s contradictions,” but “the weaker ones indulge in name-dropping, footnotes and op-ed invective.”

📖 Bookstore Faves

In the two years since Zibby Owens opened Zibby’s Bookshop, the Santa Monica store has become a vital hub for booklovers on the Westside who are drawn to the quaint, well-curated selection of books and the numerous events that take place throughout the year. I asked Zibby’s store manager Kartina Leno to tell us what book buyers are scooping up.

What’s selling right now?

Our customers are loving memoirs. “They All Came to Barneys” by Gene Pressman and “I Regret Almost Everything” by Keith McNally are flying off our shelves. By far the biggest fiction seller all year has been “The Wedding People” by Allison Espach. It’s smart, funny, and has a beautiful message.

How does the store foster a community of readers?

Our author events are such a place of community and comradeship to our customers. We have anywhere from three to five per week, and they feel like such a safe and welcoming space. We also offer a once-a-month book club that meets in person and also sees a great turnout. We have people who’ve been coming now for almost three years!

What genres have readers excited right now?

Our customers love a good cozy mystery and we’re still selling tons of “The Thursday Murder Club” by Richard Osman and “Everyone in My Family has Killed Someone” by Benjamin Stevenson. The romantasy bug has also been going around, so we make sure to have plenty of copies of Sarah J. Maas in stock.

Zibby’s Bookshop is at 1113 Montana Ave. in Santa Monica.

(Please note: The Times may earn a commission through links to Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookstores.)

The TWZ Newsletter

Weekly insights and analysis on the latest developments in military technology, strategy, and foreign policy.

A special operations team is pinned down in a valley deep inside contested territory. Ammo is running low, and close air support is nonexistent. Extraction forces are still hours out. The operatives have kept the enemy at bay, but their ability to do so is dwindling with every round they fire. Their stocks of 40mm grenades have long been exhausted; now their rifles will soon run dry too. The sky cracks with a sonic boom, which echoes across the valley, and fighting pauses for a split second as fighters on both sides look up. Soon after, the shooting resumes, but out of the blinding sun comes a capsule stuffed with ammunition hanging on a parachute and flying right toward the special operations team.

Help has arrived… From orbit.

The above is a scene that sounds like it’s ripped right out of a Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare video game, but one company is working to make it a reality.

California-based space startup Inversion has unveiled its design for a fully reusable, lifting-body spacecraft named Arc. The spacecraft is intended to deliver critical cargo from space to any point on Earth within an hour, landing on water, snow or soil with a precision of around 50 feet, the company says. The concept, aimed squarely at the defense sector, reflects longstanding U.S. military interest in using space-based systems to rapidly move cargo around the globe to meet commanders’ urgent needs.

Arc is a new kind of spacecraft.

Not quite a capsule, not quite a spaceplane. It’s based off of a lifting body design – ideal for its mission to deliver cargo from orbit to anywhere on Earth in under an hour. pic.twitter.com/KHD6v5Kcs4

— Inversion (@InversionSpace) November 5, 2025

The mission concept involves the Arc spacecraft being launched into low Earth orbit atop a rocket. Arc then remains in orbit until its cargo is required to be delivered. At that point, the spacecraft uses a deorbit engine to re-enter the atmosphere, moving at very high speed. Arc uses small thrusters and large trailing-edge maneuvering flaps to adjust its position and speed during its fiery reentry, through the atmosphere, until it approaches the ‘drop zone.’

Once it has reached a lower altitude, Arc slows down and lands using its actively controlled parachute system. This is also able to fine-tune the spacecraft’s path back to Earth. The parachute ensures a soft landing, meaning that Arc can then be reused. The entire mission is uncrewed, with the Arc being commanded by autonomous control systems.

Interestingly, Inversion’s plan to field a spacecraft that’s able to put a cargo at any place on Earth within an hour has parallels with an ambition laid out by U.S. Transportation Command (TRANSCOM), back in 2020. TRANSCOM provides transportation services and solutions to all branches of the armed forces, as well as various other defense and governmental organizations.

Speaking back then, U.S. Army Gen. Stephen R. Lyons, TRANSCOM’s commander, said: “Think about moving the equivalent of a C-17 payload anywhere on the globe in less than an hour. Think about that speed associated with the movement of transportation of cargo… There is a lot of potential here…”

At that point, TRANSCOM had begun a partnership with both SpaceX and Exploration Architecture Corporation (XArc) to pursue space-based rapid delivery concepts. SpaceX has since been working with the Air Force and Space Force on the ‘Rocket Cargo’ program, which seeks to quickly deliver cargo anywhere on Earth that can support a vertical landing.

It should be noted, however, that the sizes of payloads that Arc will be able to deliver are much smaller than those outlined by Lyons. The spacecraft itself will measure only around eight feet by four feet.

The C-17 has a maximum payload of around 82 tons, although normal payloads are around 60 tons or less. Arc is reportedly planned to have a cargo of just 500 pounds. Still, small cargoes often require very big logistics. As we have noted in a prior piece:

“Even the Navy has said in the past that when ships encounter problems as a result of logistics-related issues that leave them partially mission capable or non-mission capable, 90 percent of the time this can be resolved by the delivery of a component weighing 50 pounds or less.“

Nevertheless, Inversion clearly sees a niche for the very high-speed delivery of what it describes as “mission-enabling cargo.”

Inversion doesn’t provide any specific examples of the kinds of cargoes that might be delivered by Arc, beyond “equipment, food, or other mission cargo.” Conceivably, key cargo could comprise time-sensitive equipment and ammunition needed at forward operating locations. Since these spacecraft would be pre-launched, they would likely be filled with a range of generic cargoes that are generally time-sensitive. Then, they would be deorbited on demand.

Today, other small autonomous resupply systems have been used in combat, like the paragliding Snow Goose, and others are in development or limited use now. But these systems fly exclusively within the atmosphere and are much slower, more vulnerable, and require regional basing or an aerial delivery platform to launch them from relatively nearby.

Bearing in mind the considerable cost of a space launch, these cargoes would presumably only be delivered in the most critical scenarios, the kinds where only a high-cost rapid transport would suffice.

Such a capability would appear to have particular relevance in the context of future contingencies in the Indo-Pacific theater. With a growing expectation that this region will see a future high-end conflict involving the U.S. military, the ability to call upon space-based systems, like Arc, to quickly bring critical supplies to the area could be of high value — provided, once again, that the technology can be mastered.

Since Arc is reusable, that would go some way to making it more cost-efficient, when the vehicle can be recovered. Inversion also proposes putting several Arc vehicles into orbit at the same time (it’s unclear if these would be transported by the same or different rockets). The result has been described as something like a series of “constellations” with a variety of contingency cargoes that could be tailored to different customers and operational theaters.

Each Arc vehicle is reportedly able to remain in orbit for up to five years.

Another advantage compared to other space-based cargo-delivery concepts is the fact that Arc uses a parachute landing system.

Arc can, in theory, deliver cargo to any place on the planet, including remote regions, disaster zones, or hard-to-access theaters of war. Other orbital delivery concepts, such as suborbital VTOL rockets, have needed at least some kind of infrastructure to support the cargo-recovery part of the mission, but Arc should do away with that requirement, at least for small cargoes.

Last month, Inversion conducted precision drop-testing to prove the actively controlled parachute system that ensures that Arc will be able to put its cargoes where they are needed.

The company now says it wants to conduct a first mission with Arc as early as next year, which seems highly ambitious.

On the other hand, the startup does have some valuable experience from its Ray spacecraft, Inversion’s first, which was launched in January of this year as part of SpaceX’s Transporter-12 mission. This test mission helped prove technologies, including solar panels, propulsion, and separation systems, which will be incorporated into Arc.

For the time being, Inversion is focused solely on Arc’s military potential, although there would clearly be specific commercial applications as well. There is also the question of the possibility of adapting Arc as a reusable and recoverable satellite or even orbital supply vehicle. Meanwhile, the company has spoken confidently of producing hundreds of examples of the spacecraft every year.

Before that happens, and presuming military customers are forthcoming, Inversion will need to prove that its concept of space-based cargo deliveries can be cost-effective. There will also be various other regulatory issues to overcome, bearing in mind that this is an altogether new kind of transportation system.

Despite multiple dead ends and abortive programs, the idea of using some kind of space-based solution for rapid transport across the globe is one that won’t go away. Potentially, with its much smaller cargo loads, reusable spacecraft, and parachute-landing system, Inversion’s de-orbit on-demand cargo concept could be the one that finally breaks the mold.

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There are plenty of affordable flights from UK airports and the average temperature in October is 20C

Travel guru Simon Calder has revealed his top pick for an autumn getaway – the delightful seaside town of Cassis in southern France. He highlighted that there are plenty of budget-friendly flights from UK airports and the average October temperature is a pleasant 20C.

Cassis is also ideal for those who enjoy exploring on foot, making it a perfect choice for pensioners seeking an affordable and accessible holiday destination. The travel expert enthused: “I just came back from Côte d’Azur on Friday, and it was absolutely magical, particularly the lovely town of Cassis. Beautiful port, very close to St Tropez. It’s just a gorgeous place, the food is great!”.

“You can even take a bus from Marseille that costs £3 and takes you around one of the greatest drives in the world,” reports the Express.

Travel blogger Sam shared on her blog theblondescout that Cassis was “one of the nicest surprises” during her time living in France.

“This small fishing town is colourful, quaint and next to one of the most extraordinary landscapes I have ever witnessed: the dramatic limestone inlets that make up the Calanques between Cassis and Marseille.”

She further noted that Cassis is a small town, so it is “very walkable and easy to get around”.

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“All of the streets are picture-perfect and have that colourful French Riviera vibe! Our favourite little square was at the bougainvillaea-filled Place Baragnon.”, she said.

Travel expert Simon Calder also recommends the Algarve, in southern Portugal, as a stunning and “very affordable” seaside destination that’s not too busy at this time of year.