The final resting place of Russia's failed Luna-25 lunar lander has apparently been found.

Luna-25, Russia's first moon probe in 47 years, smashed into the lunar surface on Aug. 19, during a maneuver designed to set up its touchdown try a few days later.

The crash blasted out a new 33 feet (10 meters) wide crater, which NASA's sharp-eyed Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) likely found last week, agency officials said.

More than a dozen people nationally have been charged with threatening election workers by a Justice Department unit trying to stem the tide of violent and graphic threats against people who count and secure the vote.

Government employees are being bombarded with threats even in normally quiet periods between elections, secretaries of state and experts warn. Some point to former President Donald Trump and his allies repeatedly and falsely claiming the 2020 election was stolen and spreading conspiracy theories about election workers. Experts fear the 2024 election could be worse and want the Justice Department to do more to protect election workers.

The Justice Department created the task force in 2021 led by its public integrity section, which investigates election crimes. John Keller, the unit's second in command, said in an interview with The Associated Press that the department hoped its prosecutions would deter others from threatening election workers.

The unit has filed 14 cases and two have resulted in yearslong prison sentences, including a 2 1/2-year sentence for an Iowa man charged with leaving a message threatening to “lynch” and “hang” an Arizona election official.

A Texas man was given 3 1/2 years earlier this month after suggesting a “mass shooting of poll workers and election officials” last year, charges stated. In one message, the Justice Department said, the man wrote: “Someone needs to get these people AND their children. The children are the most important message to send.”

A leader of the Proud Boys who led the far-right organization’s infamous march to the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, was sentenced Wednesday to 17 years in prison – among the longest sentence handed down yet for a convicted rioter.

Joe Biggs was convicted by a Washington, DC jury of several charges including seditious conspiracy for attempting to forcibly prevent the peaceful transfer of power from then-President Donald Trump to Joe Biden after the 2020 election.

The government wanted Biggs to serve 33 years in federal prison. That's 15 years longer than the longest sentence in a Jan. 6 case to date: the 18-year sentence that went to Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, also convicted of seditious conspiracy, after prosecutors sought 25 years in federal prison.

IS RUSSIA HAVING AN ECONOMIC CRISIS?

No, says Chris Weafer, CEO of Macro-Advisory Ltd. “The lower ruble is partly a reflection of the effect of sanctions, but it doesn’t indicate an underlying economic crisis.”

The falling ruble actually has helped the government with its budget. It means more rubles for every dollar of earnings from oil and other products Russia sells. That bolsters spending on the military and on social programs aimed at blunting the impact of sanctions on the Russian people.

“They’ve tried to compensate for the drop in the dollar value of oil receipts with the weaker ruble, so that therefore the deficit in terms of spending could be contained and more manageable,” Weafer said.

Amid sanctions and restrictions on moving money out of the country, the ruble exchange rate is largely in the hands of the central bank, Weafer said. It can tell major exporters when to exchange their dollar earnings into Russian currency.

“The weakness was planned, but it’s overdone and they want to pull it back,” Weafer said.

Janis Kluge, a Russian economy expert at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, said the ruble decline is “not very welcome” to the Kremlin.

While not a full-blown crisis, “this is the closest we came to a real economic problem since the start of the war,” Kluge said.

Former President Donald Trump has pleaded not guilty in the sprawling Fulton County election interference case, according to a new court filing.

Trump had been scheduled to be arraigned in person on Wednesday. Georgia law allows criminal defendants to waive their in-person appearance and enter a formal plea through court filings.

His arraignment marks the fourth time that Trump has pleaded not guilty to criminal charges since leaving the presidency. In this case, Trump is charged with racketeering in his alleged efforts to upend the 2020 presidential election results in Georgia.

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is acknowledging that he took three trips last year aboard a private plane owned by Republican megadonor Harlan Crow.

It’s the first time in years that Thomas has reported receiving hospitality from Crow. In a report made public Thursday, the 75-year-old justice said he was complying with new guidelines from the federal judiciary for reporting travel.

The filing comes amid a heightened focus on ethics at the high court that stems from a series of reports revealing that Thomas has for years received undisclosed expensive gifts, including international travel, from Crow, a wealthy businessman and benefactor of conservative causes. Crow also purchased the house in Georgia where Thomas’s mother continues to live and paid for two years of private school tuition for a child raised by Thomas and his wife, Ginni.

Interest will start accruing again on September 1, after rates were effectively set to 0% since March 2020 for federal student loans. Now, interest rates, which are fixed and vary by loan, will return to the same rate they were before the freeze.

For most borrowers, the first payment will be due sometime in October – but not everyone has the exact same due date.

Borrowers can expect to receive their bill, listing their payment amount and due date, at least 21 days beforehand.

Generally, borrowers can expect their monthly payment to be the same as it was before the pandemic pause. Unless a borrower made optional payments or other changes to their account, like consolidating their loans, federal student loans were essentially frozen in time.

Russia's nationalists are fuming over a slew of attacks on Russian territory which exposed gaps in its defenses and put it on the back foot in its invasion of Ukraine.

The prominent anonymous blogger Rybar said a recent strike on Russia's Pskov airfield suggests Russia's air defenses haven't adapted to stop drone strikes. It criticized authorities for not protecting the valuable aircraft there with hangars, and compared their defenses unfavorably to those in Russian-occupied Crimea, closer to the fighter.

The Russian journalist Alexander Kots said that recent attacks showed there would be no safe place in the parts of Russia that are close to Europe, and that Russia would need to adapt.

Another blogger said that Russia's airfields should be better protected, and another said Russia should admit the attacks as soon as they happen, rather than be forced into acknowledging them after Ukrainian sources report them.

Alabama’s Republican attorney general said in a court filing that he has the right to prosecute people who make travel arrangements for pregnant women to have out-of-state abortions.

In a court filing Monday, attorneys for Attorney General Steve Marshall wrote that providing transportation for women in Alabama to leave the state to get an abortion could amount to a “criminal conspiracy.”

The court filing comes in response to lawsuits against Marshall that was filed in July from two women’s health centers and Yellowhammer Fund, an organization which says it provides “financial and practical support for those who are pregnant and require assistance.” The plaintiffs argue that Marshall violated their constitutional rights by publicly stating that organizations which help pregnant women in Alabama get an abortion out of state could be criminally investigated.

“Alabama can no more regulate out-of-state abortions than another state can deem its laws legalizing abortions to apply to Alabama,” the Yellowhammer Fund lawsuit argues.

Warning: Article has detailed accounts of the shooting

Breanna Gayle Devall Runions, 25, was charged with first-degree murder and aggravated child abuse in the death of Evangaline Gunter.

The child’s parents, Adam and Josie Gunter, told ABC affiliate WATE that Evangaline had been in temporary custody at a home in Rockwood, which Runions shared with girlfriend Christina Daniels and another child, a 7-year-old girl.

Before the shooting, Evangaline and the older girl were being punished that morning by Runions for not waking up the women and for eating Daniels’ food without permission, according to the warrant and a statement from Russell Johnson, district attorney general for Tennessee’s 9th Judicial District. Runions struck both girls with a sandal before forcing them to stand in different corners of the women’s bedroom, authorities said the older girl told them.

After the shooting, the women drove Evangaline to a nearby Walmart location to meet an ambulance, Roane County Medical Examiner Dr. Thomas Boduch told the Roane County News, and the vehicle transported the girl to a hospital where she was pronounced dead. Boduch could not immediately be reached by HuffPost.

Participants in a recent Tough Mudder event have come down with rashes and infections, California authorities say.

“Anywhere on my body that touched the ground had red spots,” participant Chris Palakos told KTVU, adding that as many as 350 people who took part in the event have fallen ill.

“The Tough Mudder race involved extensive skin exposure to mud,” the Sonoma County health advisory said. “Most affected persons have pustular rash, fever, myalgias, and headache.”

Those symptoms may indicate a minor illness known as swimmer’s itch, but also could suggest a staph infection or a more serious bacterial infection such as Aeromonas, the advisory said.

Fox News medical contributor Dr. Marc Siegel and CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta both weighed in on Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) latest freezing incident on Wednesday and suggested what the underlying health issue could be.

On Fox News’ The Special Report with Bret Baier following the incident, Siegel noted that while he hadn’t examined McConnell, his best guess “would be Parkinson’s disease because that, in its later stages, can give you a freeze.”

Gupta also raised the possibility of Parkinson’s disease during an appearance on CNN’s The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer on Wednesday.

“There’s a long list of possibilities here. I think what we saw was pretty concerning. I think most people could see that,” Gupta said. “It was similar to what we saw in July where there was this freezing. It’s the freezing of the speech, it’s the freezing of the body, it’s the tight sort of grasping of the side of the lectern.”

He continued, “His face even has this mask-like feature to it. So there’s a lot of things that are going on there.”

Gupta argued that while McConnell could have suffered from a seizure or something similar, “It could be something like when somebody comes off of their medications for things like Parkinson’s. When the medication start to wear off, they may start to have freezing episodes as well.”