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Liz Truss (born 26 July 1975) is a British politician who was prime minister from September to October 2022. A Liberal Democrat in her youth, she defected to the Conservatives in 1996. After several bids for public office she was elected as an MP in 2010 and served continuously in government in the Cameron, May and Johnson ministries, latterly as foreign secretary. After Johnson resigned in July 2022 Truss stood in the election to replace him, defeating Rishi Sunak and becoming the leader of the party. Two days after her appointment as prime minister Queen Elizabeth II died, freezing government business for ten days during a national mourning period; after its conclusion Truss's ministry announced a mini-budget which was received badly by markets, the fallout from which subsequently engulfed her government. Facing a rapid loss of confidence in her leadership, Truss resigned fifty days into her premiership and was succeeded by Sunak, becoming the shortest-serving British prime minister. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

USS Sabine, which took 35 years to finish

... that the Potomac-class frigates (example pictured) were built slowly for the sake of quality, only for the last ships to be outdated by the time they were finished?
... that Indonesian mystic Mbah Suro reportedly consumed only coffee and cigarettes for two years?
... that the United States' first capitol building was later sold for $425 and then demolished?
... that the mascot of an Australian HIV prevention campaign was a condom-wielding superhero?
... that Audichron estimated that Don Elliot Heald's voice was heard on 12 million Audichron phone calls a day in 1971?
... that the British indie rock band Girl Ray named themselves after the surrealist visual artist Man Ray?
... that avery r. young became the first poet laureate of Chicago in 2023?
... that by spinning off Lord Fitzhenry (1794) from a four-volume work in progress, Elizabeth Gunning was paid for two novels instead of one?
... that American Civil War chaplain Thomas Mooney was pulled from service after baptizing a cannon?

In the news

Ozzy Osbourne

Armed clashes erupt in the Cambodia–Thailand border conflict.
Ozzy Osbourne (pictured), the lead singer of Black Sabbath, dies at the age of 76.
A fighter jet crashes into a college in Dhaka, Bangladesh, killing more than 30 people.
In golf, Scottie Scheffler wins the Open Championship.
A tourist boat capsizes during a thunderstorm in Hạ Long Bay, Vietnam, leaving at least 36 people dead.

On this day

July 26: Independence Day in the Maldives (1965), Kargil Vijay Diwas in India

Hillary Clinton

1551 – The Knights Hospitaller surrendered the Castello of Gozo to the Ottoman Empire following a brief siege, leading to the mass enslavement and dispersal of the Gozitan population.
1778 – On the orders of Catherine the Great the first of tens of thousands of Greek and Armenian Christians were removed from Crimea and resettled in Pryazovia.
1953 – In Short Creek, Arizona, police conducted a mass arrest of approximately 400 Mormon fundamentalists for polygamy.
1993 – Asiana Airlines Flight 733 crashed into a mountain during a failed attempt to land at Mokpo Airport, South Korea, leading to the deaths of 68 people on board.
2016 – Hillary Clinton (pictured) became the first female nominee for president of the United States by a major political party at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia.

Carl Jung (b. 1875)
Ana María Matute (b. 1925)
George W. Romney (d. 1995)
Olivia de Havilland (d. 2020)

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Today's featured picture

Cytoplasmic streaming is a biological process in which cytoplasm flows inside a cell, driven by forces from the cytoskeleton. It is usually observed in large plant and animal cells, as well as amoebae, fungi, and slime moulds. It is likely that its function is, at least in part, to speed up the transport of molecules and organelles around the cell. The process was first discovered by the Italian scientist Bonaventura Corti in 1774, within the algae genera Nitella and Chara. While its mechanism is not fully understood, what is clearly visible in plant cells which exhibit cytoplasmic streaming is the motion of the chloroplasts moving with the cytoplasmic flow. This motion results from fluid being entrained by moving motor molecules of the plant cell. This video, taken through a microscope, shows cytoplasmic streaming occurring in an onion epidermal cell.

Video credit: Heiti Paves

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