The owner of a New York day care where a one-year-old boy died of fentanyl exposure was dubbed “depraved” during a court hearing. Youngster Nicholas Dominici died after he was exposed to the opioid at a Bronx facility on Friday, while three other young children were hospitalised. Daycare owner Grei Mendez, 36, and tenant Carlisto Acevedo Brito, 41, were arrested on charges including murder, manslaughter and assault. A kilo of fentanyl was found in a hallway closet outside Mr Brito’s room, which he rented from Ms Mendez for $200 a week, according to investigators. Prosecutors told a judge during a Sunday night arraignment hearing that Ms Mendez had taken part in the “reckless depraved act” by renting Mr Brito, her husband’s cousin, the room, reported ABC News. Her lawyer told the court that his client, who faces a sentence of life imprisonment if convicted, had no idea that drugs were being stored at the daycare. “Her only crime was renting her room to someone who had a kilo,” attorney Andres Aranda said. “There is no evidence that she did anything but care properly for these children.” Police say that drug production equipment was also found inside the daycare. Investigators believe that the children inhaled fentanyl particles during their daylong exposure to the drug before they were found unconscious and the alarm was raised. The judge said that Mr Brito, a national of the Dominican Republic in the country illegally, was a flight risk. He also said that Ms Mendez, who is not a US citizen and also has ties to the Dominican Republic, was a flight risk. Authorities are also looking to question Ms Mendez’s husband, who they say was captured on video fleeing the daycare with bags after the incident. “I love him, I miss him, I want him back – but there’s nothing that will give me back my son – when I came home from work and walked through the door, he’d say ‘daddy, daddy!’” Nicholas’s father, Otoniel Feliz, told ABC7. “My wife was on her way to the day care. She was going to pick him up early. Shortly before she arrives, she receives the call and also sees the ambulance.” Read More One-year-old child dead and three others hospitalised after daycare incident

Tristan Tate held an unwavering belief in his older brother even when he was an average kickboxer who aimed to win the world championship

Dr Emma Craythorne returns in 'Save My Skin' Season 5 to transform patients' lives again

SpaceX is ready to launch its next-generation Starship rocket, according to Elon Musk, pending regulatory approval. Starship is the most powerful rocket ever built, measuring 121 metres in height and capable of producing 5,000 metric tons of thrust. Once testing is complete, the craft will form part of Nasa’s Artemis mission to return astronauts to the Moon. Mr Musk also plans to use the rocket to transport people and cargo around the solar system, eventually using fleets of Starships to establish a permanent human colony on Mars. The next launch will be the second attempt at an orbital flight test, with the only previous effort ending in an explosion just three minutes into the 90 minute flight earlier this year. Each launch attempt requires approval from the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), while also requiring favourable weather conditions. “Starship is ready to launch, awaiting FAA licence approval,” Mr Musk posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Wednesday. A spokesperson for the FAA previously told The Independent that the launch licence application for Starship depends on various requirements being met, including reviews on policy, payload, safety, airspace integration, financial responsibility and environmental impacts. “The FAA will make a licence determination only after the agency is satisfied SpaceX meets all licensing, safety and other regulatory requirements,” the spokesperson said. SpaceX typically only reveals the date for rocket tests a few days before they take place, though numerous factors can still delay them. Weather at SpaceX’s Starbase facility in Texas is currently favourable for a launch, though the area can be prone to storms and hurricanes between June and November. SpaceX performed its 62nd orbital rocket launch of 2023 earlier this week, breaking its own record for the most number of launches in a single year. The private company has delivered roughly 80 per cent of all Earth payload mass to orbit in 2023, with Mr Musk predicting that this figure will rise to more than 99 per cent once Starship is in operation. “These magnitudes are madness to consider, but necessary to make consciousness multiplanetary,” he posted on X on Sunday. Read More SpaceX smashes rocket launch record as Musk eyes historic Starship mission SpaceX abandons YouTube for live streams of launches in favour of X/Twitter

Malaysia’s maritime agency says a detained Chinese barge likely plundered two World War II British shipwrecks in the South China Sea after discovering another 100 old artillery shells on it

Google CEO Sundar Pichai on Tuesday was summoned to federal court for the second time in two weeks to testify in an antitrust trial threatening to topple a pillar of an internet empire that he helped build

US Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz is retiring at the end of June after more than three decades with the agency.

Natalie Navarro was arrested for killing Arturo Pena, 21, just three days after he was found fatally shot inside a vehicle in Garland, Texas

BBC Africa Eye speaks to more than 30 witnesses about a network of abuse that continued for decades.

The yen rallied on a report that the Bank of Japan may raise a cap on government bond

Travis Kelce says the NFL is “overdoing it” with the amount of times it’s shown Taylor Swift while the music star attended his Kansas City Chiefs games the last two weeks

Nicole Boyd's lawyer, David Glass, claimed that Bam Margera started texting her after his release from psychiatric hospitalization