SpaceX’s Starship launches from Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas, Thursday, April 20, 2023. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

SOUTH PADRE ISLAND, Texas (AP) — SpaceX’s giant new rocket exploded minutes after blasting off on its first test flight and crashed into the Gulf of Mexico. Elon Musk’s company was aiming to send the nearly 400-foot (120-meter) Starship rocket on a round-the-world trip from the southern tip of Texas, near the Mexican border. It carried no people or satellites. SpaceX plans to use Starship to send people and cargo to the moon and, ultimately, Mars. A stuck valve scrapped Monday’s try. Throngs of spectators watched from several miles away from the Boca Chica Beach launch site, which was off-limits.

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Pennsylvania’s high court is holding a Republican-majority county in contempt over its commissioners allowing a third party to copy voting-machine data. It was part of a failed effort to locate fraud that might overturn former President Donald Trump’s 2020 election defeat. The state Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday against Fulton County commissioners Stuart Ulsh and Randy Bunch, and their lawyers for their behavior last year. That’s when a special master appointed by the justices was trying to figure out how an outside consultant was allowed to inspect voting machines and copy computer data despite a court order against it. Ulsh says he had no regrets over how he and Bunch handled the machines.

House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., speaks as GOP women members hold an event before the vote to prohibit transgender women and girls from playing on sports teams that match their gender identity, at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, April 20, 2023. The Republican-led House was expected to vote Thursday to bar schools and colleges that receive federal money from allowing transgender athletes whose biological sex assigned at birth was male from competing on girls or women’s sports teams or athletic events. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Republican-led House has passed a bill that would bar federally supported schools and colleges from allowing transgender athletes whose biological sex assigned at birth was male from competing on girls or women’s sports teams. The legislation is unlikely to advance further because the Democratic-led Senate will not support it and the White House said President Joe Biden would veto it. The House action comes as at least 20 other states have imposed similar limits on trans athletes at the K-12 or collegiate level. Supporters say their effort is designed to protect fair competition in sports. Democrats criticized the effort as targeting a vulnerable group of young people for political gain.

FILE – Employees of NY State Solar, a residential and commercial photovoltaic systems company, install an array of solar panels on a roof, Aug. 11, 2022, in the Long Island hamlet of Massapequa, N.Y. The Biden administration is announcing Thursday, April 20, 2023, more than $80 million in funding as part of a push to make more solar panels in the U.S. and make solar energy available in more communities. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File)

The Biden administration is set to announce more than $80 million in funding Thursday in a push to produce more solar panels in the U.S., make solar energy available to more people, and pursue superior alternatives to the ubiquitous sparkly panels made with silicon. Community solar, which is set up for people who rent or live in condos or don’t control their rooftops — is at the center of the announcement. The goal is that by 2025, five million households will have access to community solar — about three times as many as today,according to the Department of Energy. There is also funding for new types of solar panels that can convert more of the sun’s energy into electricity.

Pittsburgh, PA – PennDOT District 11 is announcing slide repair work on Todd Road (Route 3013) in Center Township, Beaver County, will begin Friday, April 21 weather permitting.

Slide repair and roadway paving requiring will occur on Todd Road near Green Garden Road will begin at 7 a.m. Friday.  Work will continue through mid-May and traffic on Todd Road will be controlled by stop signs.

Crews from A. Liberoni, Inc. will conduct the work.

Please use caution when traveling in this area.

Motorists can check conditions on more than 40,000 roadway miles, including color-coded winter conditions on 2,900 miles, by visiting www.511PA.com. 511PA, which is free and available 24 hours a day, provides traffic delay warnings, weather forecasts, traffic speed information, and access to more than 1,000 traffic cameras.

511PA is also available through a smartphone application for iPhone and Android devices, by calling 5-1-1, or by following regional twitter alerts accessible on the 511PA website.

Tune in this Today ,  April 20, 2023 at 11:30 AM for a Special Edition of Notes on Local Entertainment with Scott Tady Entertainment Editor for the Beaver County Times and Beaver County Radio’s Eddy Crow. The guys will be joined in studio by Country Star and New Brighton Grad Dawn Savage. Dawn will be performing some of her hits live on the air and on our Facebook page at wbvp-wmba.com .  The Dawn Savage Band will be performing this Sunday at the Maple Syrup and Music Festival in Brady’s Run Park.

 (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Jordan Jennings)

SOUTH CHINA SEA – U.S. Navy Hospital Corpsman 3rd Class Jessica Cruz instructs Cryptologic Technician (Technical) 2nd Class Savannah Dodson, left, from Beaver, Pa., as she performs chest compressions on a practice dummy aboard the Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser USS Bunker Hill (CG 52). Bunker Hill, part of the Nimitz Carrier Strike Group, is in U.S. 7th fleet conducting routine operations. 7th Fleet is the U.S. Navy‘s largest forward-deployed numbered fleet, and routinely interacts and operates with allies and partners in preserving a free and open Indo-Pacific region.

FILE – The New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday, June 29, 2022 in New York. (AP Photo/Julia Nikhinson, File)

NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street is wavering Wednesday following some mixed earnings reports from big U.S. companies and another signal that inflation remains hot around the world. The S&P 500 was mostly unchanged in afternoon trading following a dip earlier. The Dow fell and the Nasdaq rose. High-growth and tech stocks are being hurt in part by higher yields in the bond market, which rose after a report showed U.K. inflation remains above 10%. Tesla is falling after announcing another round of price cut for its U.S. vehicles. Netflix dropped after reporting weaker revenue than expected.

This undated photo provided by Ben Crump Law shows Ralph Yarl, the teenager shot by a homeowner in Kansas City, Mo. (Ben Crump Law via AP)

In the span of six days, four young people across the U.S. have been shot — one fatally — for making one of the most ordinary mistakes in everyday life: showing up at the wrong place. A man shot and wounded two cheerleaders outside a Texas supermarket Tuesday after one of them said she mistakenly got into his car thinking it was her own. Authorities say a group looking for a friend’s house in upstate New York arrived in the wrong driveway only for one of them to be shot to death Saturday. In Missouri last Thursday, a teen was shot twice after going to the wrong home to pick up his younger brothers.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement acting director Tae Johnson testifies before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security on the FY2024 budget request for the agency, Tuesday, April 18, 2023, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans are jump-starting an immigration and border enforcement package. The House Judiciary Committee was digging into a proposal Wednesday that would remake immigration law. It includes giving the Homeland Security secretary the power to stop migrants from entering the United States if the secretary determines the U.S. has lost “operational control” of the border. It would also make it more difficult for migrants to apply for asylum at the border. But so far, House Republicans have failed to unify behind a plan. Some Latino Republicans want to see the House prioritize pathways to legal citizenship as well.