Powerful Delta 4 Heavy rocket boosts spy satellite into space from California
CBSN
A powerful United Launch Alliance Delta 4 Heavy, one of only four remaining on the company's books, blasted off from California on Monday afternoon, lifting a classified National Reconnaissance Office spy satellite into space.
The Aerojet Rocketdyne RS-68A engines powering the rocket's three side-by-side "common booster cores" thundered to life with a roaring rush of flame at 4:47 p.m. EDT, pushing the 233-foot-tall vehicle away from launch complex 6 at Vandenberg Air Force Base northwest of Los Angeles. Generating 2.1 million pounds of thrust — the equivalent of 51 million horsepower — the hydrogen-fueled engines quickly propelled the rocket skyward, consuming 5,000 pounds of liquid hydrogen and oxygen propellants per second as it arced away on a southerly path over the Pacific Ocean.Two Native Hawaiian brothers who were convicted in the 1991 killing of a woman visiting Hawaii allege in a federal lawsuit that local police framed them "under immense pressure to solve the high-profile murder" then botched an investigation last year that would have revealed the real killer using advancements in DNA technology.
In one of his first acts after returning to the Oval Office this week, President Trump tasked federal agencies with developing ways to potentially ease prices for U.S. consumers. But experts warn that his administration's crackdown on immigration could both drive up inflation as well as hurt a range of businesses by shrinking the nation's workforce.
Meta is denying claims circulating on social media that it forced Facebook and Instagram users to follow President Trump's official accounts, saying the changes some users noticed were standard practices tied to the transition of the POTUS account from the previous administration to the incoming one.