SpaceX Starship launch ends with a dramatic water landing

SpaceX’s latest test flight of its Starship vehicle Tuesday got off to a sobering start, as the company was unable to recover the enormous booster stage of the rocket, the most powerful ever built. But about an hour later, the vehicle’s upper stage was more successful with the completion of a daring maneuver to splash down in the Indian Ocean.

Asheville gets drinkable tap water back after Hurricane Helene

ASHEVILLE, N.C. — Jeff Watts, 57, barely followed the incremental updates on his city’s water distribution system after Hurricane Helene knocked it offline in September. All he knew was that life in Asheville, North Carolina, had become more difficult and dirty.

Freed from restraints, Ukraine is poised to strike into Russia

KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine signaled a new sense of urgency Monday following a decision by the Biden administration to allow long-range strikes inside Russia using U.S.-provided missiles, with Ukrainian politicians suggesting that the first launches would come soon and without warning.

Three-quarters of US adults are now overweight or obese

Nearly three-quarters of U.S. adults are overweight or obese, according to a sweeping new study. The findings have wide-reaching implications for the nation’s health and medical costs as it faces a growing burden of weight-related diseases.

Biden asks Congress for nearly $100 billion in disaster aid

President Joe Biden urged Congress on Monday to provide nearly $100 billion in “urgently needed” aid for communities ravaged by hurricanes and other disasters in recent months, saying funding for some critical programs has either run out or is nearly exhausted.

Barnard’s Star finally has a planet, and possibly more

Barnard’s Star is a dim, reddish ball of gas just six light-years away from Earth in the constellation Ophiuchus. It is the nearest stand-alone star to our sun, but with only one-fifth the mass, it is so dim that no one knew it was there until 1916, when astronomer Edward Emerson Barnard recorded its image on a photographic plate.