What happened
US interest rates have been increased for the first time in more than three years, with the Federal Reserve lifting its benchmark rate to 3.75%-4% from 3.5%-3.75% in a unanimous decision. Fed chair Kevin Warsh (pictured above) said inflation was “too high and has been for too long”, with prices having remained above the central bank’s 2% target for more than five years. Higher rates make borrowing more expensive, but can improve returns for savers.

Who said what
Warsh called the increase a “sober” and “responsible decision”, saying the strong economy and jobs market gave the Fed room to focus on controlling inflation. Donald Trump, who had demanded lower rates, said they “should be 1%, or less” and called for them to be cut “fast!”, but Warsh said the Fed’s independence required it to “stay in our lane”.

When Warsh was confirmed in the post in May, “many Fed watchers expected him to carry out Trump’s persistent demands to slash rates”, said Michael Race on the BBC. Some Democratic lawmakers had even called him Trump’s “sock puppet”. The US president had been extremely critical of Warsh’s predecessor Jerome Powell for not cutting rates.

What next?
Most financial experts expect another rise before the end of the year, potentially taking rates to 4%-4.25%. This week’s decision is likely to push up some mortgage, credit card and personal loan rates, although most existing fixed-rate US mortgages will be unaffected.

What happened
Highly rated teenage striker J.J. Gabriel is on the brink of leaving Manchester United, according to reports.

The striker, regarded by the club as “the best 15-year-old in Europe”, did not train with the squad at the end of last week due to tensions between his family and the club, said Simon Stone, the BBC’s chief football news reporter.

Who said what
Manchester United “have been left confused and shocked” by the news that he wants his registration to be cancelled, said Dominic Booth in The Guardian. The club is “unsure what has prompted this decision” and “believe they have done everything they can” to show Gabriel and his family that “there is a pathway to the first team”, including a meeting with former manager and United great Sir Alex Ferguson.

Losing him “would be the stuff of nightmares” for the club, said James Ducker, The Telegraph’s northern football correspondent. The “notion” of him realising his potential somewhere else will “send chills down the spines” of the “Old Trafford hierarchy”.

What next?
“What happens now is open to debate,” added Stone, but if Gabriel is cleared to cancel his registration “there will be a queue of Europe’s biggest clubs jostling to sign him.”

Barcelona and Manchester City have previously been linked with the teenager, but United still believe the situation is “rectifiable given the time remaining on Gabriel’s contract”, said The Guardian.

Space travel is taking off, but landing on the Moon will be no easy feat. The first ever spaceport could join the Moon’s orbit in the next 20 years, increasing space traffic. As a result, plans need to be made to deal with the logistics of several celestial vehicles taxiing and docking at the port, and eventually at a permanent Moon settlement.

Over the next two decades Nasa will prepare to implement its Gateway – a small space station designed to be a “multi-purpose outpost supporting lunar surface missions, science in lunar orbit and human exploration further into the cosmos”, according to the space agency. With increased cosmic traffic, there need to be systems in place to manage the flow, according to a study published in the journal Acta Astronautica. The station will become an airport for space travel, but “won’t have concrete runways crowded with airplanes, flashing taxiway lights or a crackling voice over an intercom”, said a release about the study.

The Gateway “will not circle the Moon the way a satellite circles Earth” and will instead “travel in a near-rectilinear halo orbit, or NRHO, an elongated path shaped by the combined gravity of Earth and the Moon rather than by the Moon alone”, said Earth.com. And traffic management in the form of “careful choreography of spacecraft positioning” will be necessary, added the release.

The solutions “remain incredibly complex to translate into multi-billion-dollar missions with dozens of lives on the line”, said Popular Science. “Greater positional accuracy means mission planners can better predict where every spacecraft will be, preserving valuable fuel,” said Diane Davis, an associate professor of space engineering at the Texas A&M University College of Engineering and an author of the study. “The future of lunar exploration depends as much on the traffic management as it does on the rocket science.”