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© Getty Flag of Afghanistan An Afghan official says presidential polls, which were originally scheduled for April, will be held on July 20. The elections were postponed to allow time to fix technical problems that surfaced during October's parliamentary elections, deputy spokesman for the Independent Election Commission Abdul Aziz Ibrahimi said Sunday. More time is needed to verify voter lists and to train elections workers on a biometric identification system, aimed at reducing fraud. Parliamentary elections were overwhelmed by delays with some polling booths opening up five hours late, forcing a second day of voting. Several legal complaints have been filed challenging the results, with many polling results still not announced. The last presidential election, held in 2014, was mired in controversy and widespread allegations of fraud. Officials want to avoid a repeat in 2019

Ultima Thule is just one of  thousands  of objects that call the Kuiper Belt home, ranging from dwarf planets to comets. The Kuiper Belt extends from around 4.5 billion  kilometres  from the Sun (Neptune) to 7.5 billion  kilometres  from the Sun. The first small object — 1992 QB1 dubbed "Smiley" — was discovered in this region in 1992. Since then more than 2,000 objects have been discovered. Some of these worlds rival Pluto in size, but most of the worlds are only tens to hundreds of  kilometres  across. "We have a pretty good understanding of these worlds. Many of them have … moons, some even have rings,"  Dr  Stern said. These small worlds are ancient time capsules left over from the birth of the solar system 4.6 billion years ago. "We know that Ultima Thule was born at this very great distance from the Sun and has always been in that region of the solar system." At that distance temperatures are freezing — almost absolute zero or -273 deg

Ultima Thule (ultima thoo-lee) — or 2014 MU69 as it is officially known — was discovered in 2014. "Ultima is quite mysterious. We don't know much about its size and shape,"  Dr  Stern said. What we know so far is from its silhouette captured by telescopes such as the Hubble Space Telescope as the icy object passed in front of stars.  "From  that  we determine it's about 30  kilometres  long, and it's shaped a little bit like a figure eight,"  Dr  Stern said. This suggests Ultima Thule could be two objects connected together, what's known as a contact binary, or two objects orbiting each other. "We've been taking images of Ultima Thule ever since August from onboard the spacecraft, but it's just a dot in the distance that grows brighter and brighter and brighter."

© NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI via AP This illustration provided by NASA shows the New Horizons spacecraft. Three years ago, we stared with awe at the first close-up images of Pluto captured by NASA's New Horizons spacecraft. Now the spacecraft is set to make history again as it flies by an even more distant world. Ultima Thule lies 1.6 billion  kilometres  beyond Pluto in the Kuiper Belt — a cosmic doughnut of small primitive objects. No spacecraft has ever explored a world this far away from the Sun, said Alan Stern, the mission's principal investigator of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado. "It took us almost 13 years to get there  travelling  at this amazing speed of more than a million  kilometres  per day,"  Dr Stern said. At that rate, New Horizons is expected to zoom past Ultima around 4.30pm (AEDT) on New Year's Day. https://www.msn.com/en-xl/northamerica/northamerica-tech-science/new-horizons-set-to-fly-over-ultima-thule-the-most-distant

web search   © REUTERS/Massimo Pinca Juventus' Cristiano Ronaldo celebrates scoring their first goal © The Associated Press Juventus Cristiano Ronaldo, right, celebrates with teammate Paulo Dybala after scoring his side's opening goal during the Italian Serie A soccer match between Juventus and Sampdoria at Allianz stadium in Turin, Italy, Saturday, Dec. 29, 2018. (Alessandro De Marco/ANSA Via AP) ROME — Cristiano Ronaldo scored twice as runaway leader Juventus escaped with a 2-1 win over Sampdoria in Serie A on Saturday with help from the VAR. Ronaldo's second goal, a penalty, was awarded by the VAR for a questionable handball. Then Sampdoria had a stoppage-time goal chalked off by the Video Assistant Referee. Sampdoria thought it had become the first visiting Serie A club to score more than one goal at the Allianz Stadium in more than a year when Riccardo Saponara's shot went in off the underside of the crossbar, but replays showed the pl

© Provided by Cover Media Usher has filed for divorce to officially end his three-year marriage to Grace Miguel. The singer filed papers in Georgia on Friday (28Dec18), using the same attorney he retained for his previous custody fight with ex-wife, Tameka Foster, according to The Blast. Usher and Miguel, who previously worked as the Yeah! hitmaker's manager, tied the knot in 2015 and split earlier this year (18), releasing a joint statement confirming the separation. It read: "After much thought and consideration we have mutually decided to separate as a couple. "We remain deeply connected, loving friends who will continue supporting each other through the next phases of our lives. The enormous amount of love and respect that we have for each other will only increase as we move forward." The singer has had a messy 2018 amid claims he exposed two people to herpes. One unidentified male, known only as John Doe, came forward last year (17), claiming he'd

© Getty / Chris Jackson Kate Middleton's Nickname For Princess Charlotte Is Just as Adorable as You'd Imagine The British royal family has so many sweet nicknames for each other, it's almost hard to keep track. Our hearts recently melted into mush after learning that Prince George refers to Prince William as "Pops," and now we're preparing for our hearts to dissolve yet again, because we just found out what Kate Middleton calls Princess Charlotte.   The Duchess of Cambridge was recently spotted during a Christmas shopping trip at The Range (a UK discount store), where she reportedly told her 3-year-old daughter, "Get up, Poppet." An onlooker explained that Charlotte was sitting on the floor with her 5-year-old brother George. Related Slideshow: Things to know about Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge (provided by Photo Services)                                           Slide 1