This Soviet cosmonaut was the first human in orbit — fueling the space race
CNN
On April 12, 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin circled the Earth aboard the spacecraft Vostok 1. After parachuting from the craft near the Russian village of Smelovka, Gagarin landed a hero — and a major embarrassment for the US, already stung by the Soviet launch of the Sputnik satellite in 1957.
In office for less than three months, Kennedy was facing down what he and his advisers suspected to be an untrustworthy Central Intelligence Agency. He would confirm his suspicion toward the end of the month, when Cuban rebels bankrolled by the agency invaded their Communist-held homeland. At a meeting with Secretary of State Dean Rusk and others on April 12, Kennedy had stressed he wanted the invasion to be a Cuban operation as much as possible, and the CIA assured him that the rebels were up to the job.
A real estate agent in Omaha, Nebraska, got an unexpected houseguest this week – a hungry opossum who ate the Tuxedo Chocolate Mousse Cake she recently bought from Costco.
A young man from an isolated Indigenous tribe who approached a riverine community in Brazil’s Amazon returned voluntarily to his people less than 24 hours later, Brazilian authorities said.
Top Trump administration officials are set to meet with senior Russian officials to begin talks aimed at ending the war in Ukraine, according to multiple sources.
A call to an anonymous tip line set off a chain of events that helped thwart a potential Valentine’s Day mass shooting in Indiana, authorities say.
The tragedy has the city reevaluating how it connects homeless families with shelters amid fears federal support for people in or on the precipice of homelessness could wane as the Trump administration pushes to slash spending.
In less than a month in office the Trump administration has simultaneously dismantled foreign aid programs that support fragile democracies abroad and put on leave federal workers who protect US elections at home in a move that current and former officials say abandons decades of American commitments to democracy.
A 5.0 magnitude earthquake was detected in western Texas Friday night, according to the United States Geological Survey.
Sen. Mitch McConnell was a generational force for the Republican Party — using procedural tactics and political will to stymie much of former President Barack Obama’s agenda, hand President Donald Trump key first-term political victories and deliver a 6-3 conservative Supreme Court majority. Now he’s the odd man out.
The Trump administration is forcing out senior leadership at the National Archives and Records Administration in a major shakeup, according to a source familiar. President Donald Trump has been highly critical of the archives since the agency asked the Department of Justice to investigate Trump’s mishandling of classified documents after he left office.
Colorado prosecutors on Friday argued additional charges against James Craig, a dentist accused of fatally poisoning his wife, as new details were revealed in court about how he allegedly tried to get a fellow inmate to kill a detective on the case.
One week into the Trump administration, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem issued a directive that the Federal Emergency Management Agency should stop sending money to non-governmental organizations that she characterized as helping “illegal aliens.”
The morning after the mass resignation of prosecutors sparked a crisis inside the Trump Justice Department, acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove led a meeting with the Justice Department’s public integrity section. His message: they had to choose one career lawyer to file a dismissal of the corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams, according to three people briefed on the meeting.
Seventh prosecutor in Eric Adams case resigns and calls out Trump’s former lawyer in scathing letter
A federal prosecutor assigned to the corruption case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams resigned Friday in a blistering letter that accused top leaders at the Justice Department of looking for a “fool” to dismiss the criminal charges.