LONDON (The Guardian) - Jamaica’s government is set to demand reparations for Black people from the Queen for Britain’s role in the transatlantic slave trade. A petition is being prepared and will be submitted to Her Majesty and the UK government. Olivia ‘Babsy’ Grange, the minister for Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport, said: “We are especially pleased to announce that we have made further steps in our strides towards seeking reparatory justice for the victims and descendants of the transatlantic slave trade. “The petition is to be presented to the Queen of the UK and/or the Government of the UK.”

***
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi dismissed 12 cabinet members including the health minister on Wednesday to try to reinvigorate his government after fierce criticism of its handling of the coronavirus pandemic. Several members of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) were sworn in at the presidential palace to replace them in the first cabinet reshuffle since Modi was re-elected in 2019 on a promise to transform India into a political and economic power.

***
WASHINGTON (Dispatches) - The death toll for the Surfside condominium collapse climbed to 36, with more than 100 people still missing. U.S. Officials announced eight more bodies have been discovered on Tuesday, the most in one day, with the total number of dead now at three dozen, The Associated Press reported. It’s been nearly two weeks since the building collapsed. No one has been found alive in the rubble since the first few hours after the collapse. Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said hope has been diminishing, with the mission for workers ready to switch from finding those who are alive to recovering those who have died.

***
WASHINGTON (Al Jazeera) - NASA’s next great eye in the sky, the golden-mirrored James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), passed a key review this week, bringing it one step closer to launching in November and observing new parts of the cosmos for scientists here on Earth. That’s good news for the United States’ space agency, which has spent the last several weeks trying to troubleshoot issues with its current window on the universe, the Hubble Space Telescope. The storied telescope that has revolutionized our understanding of the cosmos for more than three decades is experiencing a technical glitch. According to NASA, the Hubble Space Telescope’s payload computer, which operates the spacecraft’s scientific instruments, went down suddenly on June 13.

***
LONDON (Dispatches) - North America experienced its warmest June on record, according to the EU’s Earth observation program. That will come as no surprise given the unprecedentedly high temperatures recently recorded during the heatwave that hit Canada and parts of the U.S. But UK residents may be startled to learn that despite the rain and cloud they experienced, it was the second warmest June on record for Europe. It was also the fourth warmest June ever recorded worldwide. Copernicus, the EU’s Earth observation program, produces its figures for world temperatures from computer-generated analyses using billions of measurements from satellites, aircraft and weather stations around the world.