National News

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — .SpaceX’s first private flight has streaked into orbit with two contest winners, a health care worker and their rich sponsor. It was the first time a spacecraft circled Earth with an all-amateur crew and no professional astronauts. SpaceX’s recycled rocket soared Wednesday night from the same Kennedy Space Center pad…

WASHINGTON (AP) — Olympic gold medalist Simone Biles has told Congress that the FBI and gymnastics officials turned a “blind eye” to USA Gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar’s sexual abuse of her and hundreds of other women. Biles told the Senate Judiciary Committee Wednesday that “enough is enough” as she and three other U.S. gymnasts…

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom has emphatically defeated a recall aimed at kicking him out of office. Newsom bolted to a quick victory Tuesday boosted by healthy turnout in the overwhelmingly Democratic state. He cast it as a win for science, women’s trights and other liberal issues. It ensures the nation’s…

KOSICE, Slovakia (AP) — Pope Francis is urging Slovakia’s Roma to integrate better into the mainstream as he meets with the country’s most socially excluded minority group, who have long suffered discrimination, marginalization and poverty. But Francis’ visit Tuesday to the Lunik IX settlement in Kosice brought home just how excluded the Roma are. Police…

HOUSTON (AP) — Tropical Storm Nicholas hit the Texas coast as a hurricane, bringing the threat of up to 20 inches of rainfall to parts of the Gulf Coast. The hurricane center says the storm made landfall on the eastern part of the Matagorda Peninsula and was soon downgraded to a tropical storm. It was…