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SpaceX pulled off the boldest test flight yet of its enormous Starship rocket on Sunday, catching the returning booster back at the launch pad with mechanical arms.

A jubilant Elon Musk called it “science fiction without the fiction part.”

Towering almost 400 feet (121 meters), the empty Starship blasted off at sunrise from the southern tip of Texas near the Mexican border. It arced over the Gulf of Mexico like the four Starships before it that ended up being destroyed, either soon after liftoff or while ditching into the sea. The previous one in June had been the most successful until Sunday’s demo, completing its flight without exploding.

This time, Musk, SpaceX’s CEO and founder, upped the challenge for the rocket that he plans to use to send people back to the moon and on to Mars.

At the flight director’s command, the first-stage booster flew back to the launch pad where it had blasted off seven minutes earlier. The launch tower’s monstrous metal arms, dubbed chopsticks, caught the descending 232-foot (71-meter) stainless steel booster and gripped it tightly, dangling it well above the ground.

“The tower has caught the rocket!!” Musk announced via X. “Big step towards making life multiplanetary was made today.”

Company employees screamed in joy, jumping and pumping their fists into the air. NASA joined in the celebration, with Administrator Bill Nelson sending congratulations.

Continued testing of Starship will prepare the nation for landing astronauts at the moon’s south pole, Nelson noted. NASA’s new Artemis program is the follow-up to Apollo, which put 12 men on the moon more than a half-century ago.

“Folks, this is a day for the engineering history books,” SpaceX engineering manager Kate Tice said from SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California.

“Even in this day and age, what we just saw is magic,” added company spokesman Dan Huot from near the launch and landing site. “I am shaking right now.”

It was up to the flight director to decide, in real time with a manual control, whether to attempt the landing. SpaceX said both the booster and launch tower had to be in good, stable condition. Otherwise, it was going to end up in the gulf like the previous ones. Everything was judged to be ready for the catch.

The retro-looking spacecraft launched by the booster continued around the world, soaring more than 130 miles (212 kilometers) high. An hour after liftoff, it made a controlled landing in the Indian Ocean, adding to the day’s achievement. Cameras on a nearby buoy showed flames shooting up from the water as the spacecraft impacted precisely at the targeted spot and sank, as planned.

“What a day,” Huot said. “Let’s get ready for the next one.”

The June flight came up short at the end after pieces came off. SpaceX upgraded the software and reworked the heat shield, improving the thermal tiles.

SpaceX has been recovering the first-stage boosters of its smaller Falcon 9 rockets for nine years, after delivering satellites and crews to orbit from Florida or California. But they land on floating ocean platforms or on concrete slabs several miles from their launch pads — not on them.

Recycling Falcon boosters has sped up the launch rate and saved SpaceX millions. Musk intends to do the same for Starship, the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built with 33 methane-fuel engines on the booster alone.

Musk said the captured Starship booster looked to be in good shape, with just a little warping of some of the outer engines from all the heat and aerodynamic forces. That can be fixed easily, he noted.

NASA has ordered two Starships to land astronauts on the moon later this decade. SpaceX intends to use Starship to send people and supplies to the moon and, eventually Mars.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Universities across the country have transformed at the command of anti-diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) legislation. At the University of Texas-Austin, the legislation led to resource cancellations, office closures, and staff firings — pushing some students to create alternatives to their school’s defunct diversity programs.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed SB 17 into law in 2023, barring public institutions of higher education from having diversity, equity, and inclusion offices, as well as programs, activities, and training conducted by those offices. The law also restricts training or hiring policies based on race, gender identity or sexual orientation.

His office told ABC News in a recent statement that the legislation was intended to ensure people “advance based on talent and merit at public colleges and universities in Texas.”

Abbott’s office criticized universities for using DEI offices to “advance political agendas and exclude conservative viewpoints on college campuses. These efforts adversely affect our students, limit exposure to diverse thought, and destroy our education system,” read the statement from Abbott’s press secretary Andrew Mahaleris.

ABC News spoke to UT Austin students and a terminated faculty member about the compounding impact the loss of diversity programs has had on campus.

The long list of potential college life logistics – like how to pay for school, open an independent bank account or get a job – is even longer for undocumented students and those with temporary status.

These students are not eligible for federal student aid, federal work-study, are limited in their access to grants and scholarships and, in some cases, cannot accept paying jobs while in school.

With limited guidance and limited options, Arely, a student at UT Austin who asked to be referenced by only her first name out of privacy concerns, said her status created many unknowns and uncertainties for her future when applying to colleges. As a Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipient, Arely told ABC News she worked hard to be at the top of her high school class so she could get into a good school.

DACA is a U.S. government policy that allows some undocumented immigrants to remain in the United States temporarily and work. Recipients must have entered the United States illegally before their 16th birthday and be younger than 31 years old on June 15, 2012, according to the U.S. Citizens and Immigration Services website.

“It was always kind of told to me, like, your education is going to be the only way you’re going to be able to kind of push forward and build something out for yourself – it’s through your education,” said Arely.

At UT Austin, students like Arely had a place to turn to for answers. Monarch, an on-campus student program for undocumented and temporary status students, hosted workshops on those logistical concerns, mental health resources at little to no cost, career fairs specifically geared toward undocumented students, panel discussions with undocumented grads, and a donor-based scholarship.

“Those are the things that I would help students navigate,” said Alicia Moreno, the former Monarch Student Program Coordinator. “Like working with campus partners to create resources and help students understand what their options were because many students that I heard – before they ran into Monarch – they believed their options were really slim.”

Monarch was a way for the university to ensure students could succeed despite the barriers they face due to their status, Moreno said.

“A lot of my college experience would have definitely been way more different had Monarch not been there,” said Arely. “I can’t imagine in what situation I would have been had I not had that support system.”

Arely, who worked at the center, said the Monarch team also would get requests from faculty and staff asking to hold trainings regarding the challenges undocumented students face.

“A lot of these students had gone their whole college career having access to these resources, and now they were suddenly taken away and ripped out of their hands,” said Arely. “Especially for, like, incoming freshmen who had maybe specifically applied to UT Austin because of this program, and now they’re going to get to the UT campus and they’re going to realize that program that was supposed to support them and acknowledge them is no longer there.”

Moreno was one of about 60 people whose positions were terminated following the closure of DEI offices and related initiatives, according to a joint letter from the Texas NAACP & Texas Conference of American Association of University Professors.

The university initially stated that some programs would be shifted to other divisions or renamed to complement ongoing operations. Monarch, according to students and former staff, was also initially not targeted by SB 17 since it does not specifically refer to any race or ethnicity.

However, university officials later stated that the law changed the scope of some programs, making them broader and creating overlap between existing programs.

“We know these programs and the dedicated staff who run them will continue to have positive impacts on our campus and community,” read the university’s letter referring to the programs that remained.

The terminations came shortly after state Sen. Brandon Creighton, who introduced the legislation, warned universities against simply renaming their DEI programs, threatening to freeze funding.

“I was getting ready to prepare for the next year. My office was just painted. I had just gotten that Exemplary Service Award, and then – boom! – we were all terminated,” Moreno said.

Students say they have been left to pick up the pieces without the dedicated resources to support them. Victoria Uriostegui-Garcia, a member of a student-run group called Rooted, said her organization has become a substitute for the services once provided by Monarch. It is one of several student-run organizations to take on the responsibilities of the now-shuttered offices.

“It falls on students again to provide their own resources, which is a very heavy burden,” said Uriostegui-Garcia. “We’re going to try our best.”
Students lead the charge

Among the centers and programs shut down by UT Austin were Multicultural Engagement Center, the Gender and Sexuality Center, and the Fearless Leadership Institute – a professional development program for African American & Hispanic women.

However, UT Austin is not the only school facing these restrictions. Schools across the state — and in some states across the country — have seen similar mass closures and firings following the implementation of anti-DEI legislation.

At least nine states have implemented legislation restricting DEI in education: Alabama, Florida, Idaho, lowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and Utah.

Supporters of anti-DEI legislation, like Creighton, have applauded the changes made by SB 17. Creighton argued that it returned the university to “a merit-based operational framework, ensuring that every student, faculty, and staff member is afforded equal opportunities and not silenced by DEI-oriented policies,” he said in a March 2024 statement.

UT Austin states that it remains vigilant in ongoing efforts to ensure the university’s compliance with the state law, defining DEI offices as any office that implements programs or training with reference to race, ethnicity, gender identity, or sexual orientation, “influences hiring or employment practices” with respect to those identities or promotes “differential treatment of or providing special benefits to individuals” on the basis of identity.

I recognize that strong feelings have surrounded SB 17 from the beginning and will shape many Longhorns’ perceptions of these measures,” said university president Jay Hartzell. “It is important that we respect the perspectives and experiences of our fellow Longhorns as the changes we are announcing today take effect. It is also important that this continues to be a welcoming, supportive community for all.”

UT Austin did not respond to ABC News’ requests for further comment.

Alex and Sophia, members of Texas Students for DEI who asked to be referenced by only their first names out of privacy concerns, say the services were targeted for specific groups who have historically faced discrimination or barriers to success, but were open to all students.

Alex noted, for example, that a closet of free clothes located in the gender center was open to all: “If it meant that you got kicked out of the home, or if it meant that you needed clothes for a job — hey, there’s clothes available, no questions asked.”

Alex and Sophia say many students they have spoken to did not know about SB 17 until it passed and they started seeing their centers close on campus.

Student organizations have stepped up to the plate, hoping to foster community in a time when resources backed by the university have shrunk. They say schools across the state have “over-complied” with the law — leading to a chilling effect of classroom curriculum and discussion concerning race, gender and sexual orientation.

“Even now, if you read some of the syllabi for some classes, they’ll have a disclaimer at the end saying no material in this class is pertaining to SB 17 or falls under the guidelines of SB 17,” said Sophia, despite the UT Austin website stating explicitly that academic instruction and research is not to be impacted by the law. “They’re expecting to be censored. They’re expecting the state to want to do things against them, and so they’re, they feel less comfortable talking about these topics openly, which ultimately affects our education.”

She continued, “We are a university, we’re a place of learning, and learning requires people to be open about information in a way that isn’t censored, and when a state tries to censor that, they ultimately harm themselves.”

With SB 17 passed, students are worried the state will continue to embrace other anti-DEI initiatives. They hope to safeguard from further efforts by educating the college community about what DEI is and what it means.

“It isn’t just one university. It’s all of us. And silence isn’t really the way out,” said Alex.

AUSTIN (AP) – A federal appeals court has ordered the removal of a federal judge and overturned her contempt finding and fine against the state of Texas in a lawsuit over the state’s struggling foster care system.

In a ruling released late Friday, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said U.S. District Judge Janis Jack’s contempt ruling and $100,000-per-day fine violates the court’s constitutional limits of power over individual states.

The appeals court also said that Jack had disrespected the state and its attorneys during the long-running case, noting that she at one point remarked, “I don’t know how the state sleeps at night with this. I really don’t.”

“The judge exhibits a sustained pattern, over the course of months and numerous hearings, of disrespect for the defendants and their counsel, but no such attitude toward the plaintiffs’ counsel,” the ruling stated.

The judge’s demeanor exhibits a “high degree of antagonism,” calling into doubt at least “the appearance of fairness” for the state, the ruling added.

An attorney for those who filed the lawsuit alleging that the state routinely fails to investigate complaints of abuse and neglect raised by children in its care said Saturday that the group will appeal the ruling.

“Frankly, this is a sad day for Texas children,” attorney Paul Yetter said in an email.

“For over a decade, Judge Jack pushed the state to fix its broken system,” Yetter said. “She deserves a medal for what she’s done.”

The case began in 2011 with a lawsuit over foster care conditions at the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, the child welfare arm of Texas Health and Human Services.

Since 2019, court-appointed monitors have released periodic reports on DFPS progress toward eliminating threats to the foster children’s safety.

A report earlier this year cited progress in staff training, but continued weaknesses in responding to investigations into abuse and neglect allegations, including those made by children.

In one case, plaintiffs say, a girl was left in the same, now-closed, residential facility for a year while 12 separate investigations piled up around allegations that she had been raped by a worker there.

Texas has about 9,000 children in permanent state custody for factors that include the loss of caregivers, abuse at home or health needs that parents alone can’t meet.

DALLAS – A Thursday drive-by shooting of a man who left the State Fair of Texas has left him injured. Dallas police said the victim and his friends got into a fight with another group of people. As they were leaving, a car drove by them, and someone in the car opened fire. One man suffered a gunshot wound to his ankle and was grazed in the head. The suspects fled the scene and remain at large. No description was released of the shooter or the car that was involved.

LAS VEGAS (AP) — One of three suspects jailed in Las Vegas following a deadly two-state shooting rampage on Thanksgiving 2020, including the killing of a man at a convenience store in southern Nevada and a shootout with authorities in northwestern Arizona, has pleaded guilty.

Christopher McDonnell, 32, entered his pleas Thursday to 23 felonies, including murder, attempted murder, murder conspiracy, weapon charges and being a felon illegally in possession of a firearm, according to Clark County District Court records.

He had been indicted on 55 counts, and his trial had been scheduled for next month. A felony charge of committing an act of terrorism was among counts dropped as part of his plea agreement.

“Christopher decided taking responsibility for his actions was in his best interest,” his attorney, Ryan Bashor, said Friday. McDonnell remains jailed without bail in Las Vegas. His plea was first reported by KLAS-TV.

McDonnell will face life in prison with a broad range of parole eligibility — a minimum of 21 years and a maximum 164 years, prosecutor Michael Schwartzer told The Associated Press, adding that he will seek a sentence “beyond (McDonnell’s) natural life term.”

Sentencing is scheduled Dec. 13. Bashor said he hopes to win a more lenient sentence.

The plea agreement does not require Christopher McDonnell to testify at a jury trial set to begin Nov. 4 for his former wife, Kayleigh Lewis, 29, and his older brother, Shawn McDonnell, Schwartzer said.

Shawn McDonnell, 34, faces 54 felony charges including committing an act of terror and could face the death penalty if convicted.

Lewis, 29, faces 53 felony charges also including an act of terror, but will not face a possible a death sentence.

Both remain jailed without bail. Their defense attorneys did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment.

Police and prosecutors say the 11-hour rampage began Nov. 26, 2020, and included apparently random shootings that killed Kevin Mendiola Jr. at a convenience store in Henderson, near Las Vegas, and drive-by gunfire that wounded several other people.

It ended near the Colorado River town of Parker, Arizona, after a chase involving officers from the Arizona Department of Public Safety, the crash of a car with a Texas license plate and the wounding of Shawn McDonnell by troopers wielding assault-style rifles.

The three defendants, originally from Tyler, Texas, were returned in custody to Las Vegas, where a grand jury indicted them in March 2021.

Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson said at the time that the crimes amounted to “heinous and random” terrorist acts and an attempt to cause widespread fear in the public.

FORT WORTH (AP) — Attack ads on every TV break. Campaign money pouring in. And on a sunny Saturday, a crowd stretching out the door for a campaign rally at Tulip’s, a popular Fort Worth nightclub — this time for Democratic U.S. Rep. Colin Allred, a former NFL linebacker trying to unseat Republican Sen. Ted Cruz.

Texas is having one of those Octobers again.

With Democrats defending twice as many Senate seats as Republicans, Allred’s bid could be their best chance to flip a seat next month and preserve their thin Senate majority. Cruz is imploring Republican supporters to take the challenge seriously, six years after his narrow victory over Beto O’Rourke revealed fault lines for Republicans after decades of dominance in Texas.

But Allred, who would become Texas’ first Black senator, is doing things his own way. Out for more than the moral victories Texas Democrats have settled for since 1994 — the last time they won a statewide election — Allred has run to the center and away from O’Rourke’s barnstorming and break-the-rules blueprint. The different look has frustrated some Democrats, but amid signs of a competitive race with less than a month to go, Allred is sticking to the script.

“Beto didn’t win, but he was successful,” said Ryan Armstrong, 21, who was registering voters outside Tulip’s on a clipboard still adorned with a “Beto for Texas” sticker. “I have a lot of hope that (Allred) will win, but I honestly don’t know if he’s done enough.”
Abortion rights and a Cancun trip

Allred, a three-term congressman from Dallas, is by nature a far different candidate than O’Rourke, an electrifying orator who was quick to hop up on a table to fire up a crowd and road-tripped across all 254 counties. Allred describes himself as someone who “keeps a cool head” and presents himself as a bipartisan problem-solver. To win with that low-key approach, he’ll need enthusiasm generated by Vice President Kamala Harris at the top of the Democratic ticket even as he sets himself apart from her in a state former President Donald Trump is expected to win handily.

“Colin has to outperform Harris, so that’s a little more delicate for him than it was for us,” said David Wysong, a top O’Rourke adviser during his 2018 run against Cruz.

Allred boosts his moderate credentials by touting endorsements from prominent Republicans, including former U.S. Reps. Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney.

Other factors also could work in Allred’s favor. Most notably, there’s the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in 2022 to strip away constitutional protections for abortion, a ruling that paved the way for Texas to outlaw nearly all abortions. That has been a winning issue for Democrats ever since, even in red states like Kentucky and Kansas.

Allred has featured abortion rights in his campaign, highlighting the personal story of Kate Cox, a Texas woman forced to flee the state to get an abortion after doctors determined her fetus had a fatal condition for which there are no exceptions under Texas law.

He has also not let up on Cruz’s family vacation to Mexico during a deadly winter storm that crippled the state’s power grid and is likely to remind voters again when the candidates debate on Oct. 15.
Cruz goes on the offensive

Cruz, meanwhile, has transformed from selling himself as an unapologetic partisan who showed little interest in governing when he arrived in Washington to a get-things-done Republican holding the line against Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and other Democrats. He remains just as combative, attacking Allred as a “radical leftist” and linking the congressman to immigration problems and transgender rights.

“Let me tell you, Chuck Schumer and the communists have set their targets on Tarrant County,” Cruz told a packed house of supporters at Outpost 36, a barbecue restaurant in the Fort Worth suburb of Keller.

“They can’t have it,” he said, prompting cheers from people waving Cruz signs that read “Keep Texas Texas.”

Tarrant County, which includes Fort Worth and the fast-growing suburbs surrounding it, is the kind of place Allred needs to win big in. Races here have been close in recent cycles, with O’Rourke topping Cruz by less than 1 percentage point in 2018 and President Joe Biden winning the county by a similar margin four years ago.

“Six years ago it was a real battle, and this year it’s a real battle,” Cruz said. “It’s not complicated. If you are a hardcore partisan Democrat, after Donald Trump there’s nobody in the country you want to beat more than me.”

And while O’Rourke’s Senate campaign in 2018 may have provided some kind of statewide roadmap for Democrats, he lost in his attempt to unseat Gov. Greg Abbott two years ago by more than 10 percentage points.
Campaign spending tops $120M in Texas

The amount of money being spent by both sides hints at the race’s national significance.

According to AdImpact, which tracks spending on advertising, the $120 million both parties are spending on the Texas U.S. Senate race is set to exceed the roughly $40 million either paid for or reserved in the Florida Senate race, another top target for Democrats. But it pales in comparison with races in Montana and Ohio, where total spending exceeds $700 million on races in which Democrats are defending seats in red-leaning states.

Part of the heavy spending in Texas is attributable to its size, with 20 separate television markets, including two of the largest and most expensive in the country in Dallas and Houston.

“I think part of it also reflects the fact that Allred has been very successful raising money, and he’s been spending quite a bit of that on TV advertising,” said Mark Jones, a Rice University political science professor. “National Democrats have not yet demonstrated the same level of enthusiasm and optimism as the Allred campaign. Part of that may be that they’re still trying to figure out the difficult calculus of combining defense, which they’re far more focused on, and offense.”
Allred: From NFL to Congress

Allred’s resume seems perfect for the Lone Star State. A star high school athlete from Dallas, he played linebacker and was captain of the football team at Baylor University in Waco. After his NFL career, he worked as a civil rights attorney.

He also has knocked off a high-profile Republican, having defeated Rep. Pete Sessions after he’d spent more than two decades in Congress in 2018. That campaign drew considerable energy from O’Rourke’s bid to unseat Cruz, who beat the former El Paso congressman by less than 3 percentage points.

Still, running a successful statewide campaign comes with a higher degree of difficulty, and Allred’s approach has left some Democrats scratching their heads. In Laredo, for example, a fast-growing county along the U.S.-Mexican border, some Democrats wonder where he’s been.

“He’s done absolutely nothing, nothing to appeal to our voters,” said Sylvia Bruni, chair of the Webb County Democratic Party. “As far as he’s concerned, apparently we’re not worth the time.”

Allred defends his strategy, saying the political landscape has shifted.

“I’m a different candidate and this is a very different year,” he said. “We have different issues that have happened since 2018.”

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Lozano reported from Houston. Leah Askarinam of the Decision Desk contributed from Washington.