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Japan launches
spacecraft
(AP) -- A Japanese spacecraft is rocketing toward Mars on an unprecedented quest to explore its mysterious moons and bring back samples. Japan launched it before dawn Tuesday from the country’s main spaceport.
Five of the world’s space agencies have joined forces for the five-year mission that will attempt to land a robotic prospector plus a rover on Phobos, the larger of Mars’ two moons. While NASA and China have successfully landed spacecraft on Mars, no one has ever ventured onto Phobos or its sidekick Deimos and no one has managed to fetch samples.
If successful, Martian lunar soil and small rocks will arrive at Earth in 2031.
Trump signs
health order
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Donald Trump has directed the federal government to bolster federal research into women’s health, a move pushed by his wife, Melania Trump. The couple appeared Monday at a White House ceremony at which the Republican president signed an executive order creating a women’s health division at the National Institutes of Health.
The order also establishes a White House task force on the issue. Melania Trump says the effort will change the reality of women’s health in America. White House chief of staff Susie Wiles and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will lead the panel, whose first meeting was set for Monday.
Amanpour
leaving CNN
(AP) ‚ Christiane Amanpour will be leaving CNN after 43 years. The network’s longtime anchor plans to scale back her daily show, “Amanpour,” on CNN International to once a week starting in 2027. She will end her show in May and leave the network the following month.
Amanpour, 68, will also end her PBS show at year’s end. She will continue her podcast, “The Ex Files,” with her ex-husband, Jamie Rubin.
Amanpour’s exit coincides with a new era at CNN as it comes under new owner Skydance, after an $81 billion merger that brings CNN and CBS under one roof.
Oil spill
did damage
WASHINGTON (AP) -- In the years after the 2010 BP oil spill, the number of fish in the deeper parts of the Gulf of Mexico dramatically declined. According to a major multi-year study published Monday, fish populations dropped by about 60%, while krill that whales and others eat plummeted 72%.
Researchers said there’s no other cause they could find for the drop except the BP oil spill. Dispersants used after the spill caused many problems, and new studies show that in future accidents, it would be better to avoid those chemicals and instead add agents that increase oil-munching microbes.