Artemis II astronauts bound for moon after rocketing away on NASA's first lunar voyage in decades

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Four astronauts embarked on a high-stakes flight around the moon Wednesday, humanity’s first lunar voyage in more than half a century and the thrilling leadoff in NASA’s push toward a landing in two years.

Carrying three Americans and one Canadian, the 32-story rocket rose from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center where tens of thousands gathered to witness the dawn of this new era. Crowds also jammed the surrounding roads and beaches, reminiscent of the Apollo moonshots in the 1960s and ’70s. It is NASA’s biggest step yet toward establishing a permanent lunar presence.

“On this historic mission, you take with you the heart of this Artemis team, the daring spirit of the American people and our partners across the globe, and the hopes and dreams of a new generation,” launch director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson told the crew right before liftoff. “Good luck, Godspeed Artemis II. Let’s go.”

Artemis II set sail from the same Florida launch site that sent Apollo’s explorers to the moon so long ago. The handful still alive cheered this next generation’s grand adventure as the Space Launch System rocket thundered into the early evening sky, a nearly full moon beckoning some 248,000 miles (400,000 kilometers) away.

Five minutes into the flight, Commander Reid Wiseman saw the team’s target: “We have a beautiful moonrise, we’re headed right at it,” he said from the capsule. On board with him are pilot Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Canada's Jeremy Hansen. It is the most diverse lunar crew ever with the first woman, person of color and non-U. S. citizen riding in NASA’s new Orion capsule.

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Takeaways from Trump's address: No end date for Iran war and few details on strategy ahead

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump sought Wednesday to explain his rationale for the war against Iran at a pivotal moment at home and abroad, but he offered few new details as he amasses extraordinary executive authority to prosecute the military operation.

Notably missing from Trump’s primetime address was his oft-repeated assertion that negotiations with Iran were underway. He softened his insults against NATO allies and did not indicate he was preparing to send in ground troops, particularly to retrieve Iran’s enriched uranium. But he gave no definitive end date for the conflict.

The war is fast becoming a signature of his second-term agenda, and the speech was a capstone to a remarkable day flexing presidential power.

Trump started the morning as the first sitting president to show up for a U.S. Supreme Court hearing, a stunning reach of the executive into the affairs of the judicial branch. He ended with his first address from the White House about a war he launched on his own, bulldozing past Congress.

On a night when many Americans may have been looking upward as Artemis II astronauts lifted off for NASA's return to the moon, Trump gave a nod to that historic milestone. Then he quickly refocused attention back to him — and to the conflict with Iran that has killed more than a dozen U.S. service members and appears to have no easy exit in sight.

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Supreme Court seems poised to reject Trump's birthright citizenship limits as he attends arguments

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court seemed poised Wednesday to reject President Donald Trump’s restrictions on birthright citizenship in a momentous case that was magnified by his unparalleled presence in the courtroom.

Conservative and liberal justices questioned whether Trump's order declaring that children born to parents who are in the United States illegally or temporarily are not American citizens comports with either the Constitution or federal law.

Arguments lasted more than two hours in a crowded courtroom that included not only Trump, the first sitting president to attend arguments at the nation’s highest court, but also Attorney General Pam Bondi and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, and in seats reserved for the justices' guests, actor Robert De Niro.

The case frames another test of Trump’s assertions of executive power that defy long-standing precedent for a court with a conservative majority and a robust view of presidential power, which has largely ruled in the Republican president’s favor. In the notable exceptions when the court has not, Trump has responded with starkly personal criticisms of the justices. A definitive ruling is expected by early summer.

Trump, the media-savvy president, spent just over an hour inside a courtroom that prohibits cameras and all electronic devices for arguments made by the Republican administration's top Supreme Court lawyer, Solicitor General D. John Sauer. The president departed shortly after lawyer Cecillia Wang began her presentation in defense of broad birthright citizenship.

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New DNA testing confirms serial killer Ted Bundy killed a Utah teen in 1974

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — The late Ted Bundy, one of the most famous and prolific serial killers in U.S. history, has claimed another victim.

New DNA testing confirmed Bundy was responsible for the 1974 killing of a 17-year-old Utah girl who disappeared after leaving a party alone on Halloween night, the local sheriff’s office said Wednesday.

Laura Ann Aime was found dead on the side of a highway in American Fork Canyon about a month after her abduction. She was bound, beaten and without clothing.

Investigators long suspected that Bundy killed her — police said he confessed without providing any details before his execution in Florida in 1989 — but the case remained open until they could be certain.

“It's really quite amazing that people are even still interested in Laura's case,” her sister, Michelle Impala, said at a news conference Wednesday. “Know I speak for my family when I thank you, and thank you media, too, for even caring.”

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DHS boss rescinds restrictive $100,000 approval process, giving hope to FEMA relief efforts

WASHINGTON (AP) — Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin on Wednesday rescinded a rule that DHS expenditures over $100,000 be personally approved by his office, ending a widely criticized policy implemented by his predecessor Kristi Noem that critics said put a particular burden on the Federal Emergency Management Agency ’s work aiding disaster response and recovery.

The decision marks the first major action by the new Homeland Security leader, sworn in last week, to change a policy implemented by Noem, whom President Donald Trump fired in March.

Mullin's move is expected to ease a spending bottleneck that lawmakers and states said delayed disaster response and recovery funds, though those impacts are unlikely to be widely felt until after the end of the DHS shutdown, now in its 47th day.

A DHS spokesperson confirmed that Mullin rescinded the rule Wednesday, telling The Associated Press the secretary “re-evaluated the contract processes to make sure DHS is serving the American taxpayer efficiently.” CBS News first reported Mullin's decision.

The spokesperson said Mullin’s action will streamline the contracting process and allocate aid more efficiently.

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Stocks rally worldwide as oil prices ease on hopes for a possible end to the Iran war

NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks rushed higher worldwide, and oil prices eased Wednesday as hopes built that the war with Iran could end soon. That’s even though some of the signals investors saw as hopeful are already under dispute, and several earlier bouts of optimism in financial markets quickly got undercut by continued, fierce fighting in the war.

The S&P 500 rose 0.7% and added to its leap from the day before, which was its best since last spring. That followed even bigger gains for stock markets across Europe and Asia, including an 8.4% surge in South Korea, which were catching up to Wall Street’s rally from Tuesday.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 224 points, or 0.5%, and the Nasdaq composite rallied 1.2%.

Oil prices also fell back toward $100 per barrel after President Donald Trump said late Tuesday that the U.S. military could end its offensive in two to three weeks.

That added to optimism following a couple tenuous signals of hope from earlier Tuesday that Wall Street latched onto, including a news report quoting Iran’s president as saying that it has “the necessary will to end the war” as long as certain requirements are met, including “guarantees to prevent a recurrence of aggression.”

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FDA grants speedy approval to Eli Lilly's weight-loss pill for obesity

Federal regulators on Wednesday approved Eli Lilly’s new weight-loss pill, a second daily oral medication to treat obesity and other weight-related conditions.

The Food and Drug Administration granted expedited approval to orforglipron, a GLP-1 drug that works like widely used injectable medications to mimic a natural hormone that controls appetite and feelings of fullness.

The drug, which will be branded as Foundayo, is expected to begin shipping Monday. The company said people with insurance may be able to get the drug starting at $25 per month with a Lilly discount card. Prices for people paying cash will range between $149 per month to $349 per month, depending on the dose.

The new pill joins drugmaker Novo Nordisk's oral Wegovy pill, which has spurred more than 600,000 prescriptions in the United States since it was approved in December.

The FDA authorized Eli Lilly's drug as part of a new program aimed at cutting drug approval times. The agency said it reviewed the company's application in 50 days.

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To fix a patient's irregular heartbeat, doctors first tested its digital 'twin'

WASHINGTON (AP) — Scientists created virtual replicas of patients’ diseased hearts so precise that blocking a dangerous irregular heartbeat in these digital “twins” showed doctors how to better treat the real thing.

One of the first clinical trials of these custom models suggests it might improve care for ventricular tachycardia, a notoriously difficult-to-treat arrhythmia that is a major cause of sudden cardiac arrest, blamed for about 300,000 U.S. deaths a year.

The study, by researchers at Johns Hopkins University, was a small first step. The Food and Drug Administration allowed the digital twin technology to guide treatment for just 10 patients, and much larger studies will be needed.

But the results reported Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine come as doctors increasingly are exploring how a technology long used in aerospace and other industries might be harnessed for better health, too.

Dr. Jeffrey Goldberger, a heart specialist at the University of Miami who wasn’t involved with the study, experimented with more rudimentary iterations 15 years ago and praised the new findings. “This is what we envisioned,” he said.

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SpaceX files initial paperwork to sell shares to the public and likely make Musk a trillionaire

NEW YORK (AP) — Elon Musk's space exploration company has filed preliminary paperwork to sell shares to the public, according to two sources familiar with the filing, a blockbuster offering that would likely rank as the biggest ever and could make its founder the world's first trillionaire.

A SpaceX IPO promises to be one of the biggest Wall Street events of the year, with several investment banks lining up to help raise tens of billions to fund Musk's ambitions to set up a base on the moon, put datacenters the size of several football fields in orbit and possibly one day send a man to Mars.

The sources spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk publicly about the confidential registration with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

SpaceX did not respond immediately to a request for comment.

Exactly how much SpaceX plans to raise has not been disclosed but the figure is reportedly as much as $75 billion. At that level, the offering would easily eclipse the $29 billion that Saudi Aramco raised in its IPO in 2019.

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Tiger Woods turns down Ryder Cup captain's job and seeks treatment out of country

Tiger Woods formally turned down the Ryder Cup captaincy Wednesday as he steps away from golf activities, and a Florida judge approved his motion to leave the country to seek treatment.

The developments come one day after Woods entered a not guilty plea to suspicion of driving under the influence when his SUV clipped the back of a trailer and flipped on its side last week on a residential road near his home on Jupiter Island, Florida.

Woods posted a statement Tuesday night saying that he was stepping away indefinitely “to seek treatment and focus on my health.”

A motion filed Wednesday by his attorney, Douglas Duncan, asked a judge that Woods be allowed to travel outside the country to begin “comprehensive inpatient treatment.”

Duncan said the recommendation from Woods' doctor was based on the golfer's “complex clinical presentation and the urgent need for a level of care that cannot safely or effectively be done within the United States as his privacy has been repeatedly compromised.

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