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SpaceX's Starship exploded during a return-landing attempt on Wednesday.
The 16-story-tall rocket was a prototype for a heavy-lift launch vehicle Elon Musk says could carry people to Mars in as little as six years.
The self-guided rocket blew up as it touched down on a landing pad following a controlled descent.
The test flight in Texas had been intended to reach an altitude of eight miles, propelled by three of SpaceX's newly developed Raptor engines for the first time.
China has sent two satellites for the detection of gravitational waves into planned orbit.
The satellites will be used to monitor high-energy celestial phenomena and to study neutron stars, black holes and other compact objects and their merger processes.
They can also detect solar flares, Earth gamma flashes and Earth electron beams.
The leaders of China and France have discussed ways to promote bilateral cooperation in the next stage.
During a phone conversation on Wednesday, Xi Jinping and Emmanuel Macron both suggested the two sides strengthen coordination and cooperation on major global and regional issues and called for joint efforts to speed up negotiations on a China-EU investment agreement.
Both sides agreed to actively participate in the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access Facility, jointly uphold multilateralism and tackle climate change.
They also agreed to carry out more cooperation in the fields such as biomedicine, biological breeding, moon and Mars exploration and satellite research and development.
The two sides also exchanged views on the Iranian nuclear issue and Antarctic marine protection.
The U.S. House of Representatives has passed a one-week stopgap funding bill to keep the federal government open through Dec. 18.
The bill has been sent to the Senate for approval.
Current funding for federal government agencies is set to expire on Friday. The stopgap funding bill would provide more time for lawmakers to negotiate a deal in COVID-19 relief and long-term government funding.
President-elect Joe Biden has announced he's nominating retired four-star Army general Lloyd Austin to be his secretary of defense.
Austin will also need to obtain a congressional waiver to serve as defense secretary.
Congress intended civilian control of the military when it created the position of secretary of defense in 1947 and prohibited a recently retired military officer from holding the position.
Austin retired in 2016.
Federal regulators are asking for Facebook to be ordered to divest its Instagram and WhatsApp messaging services as the U.S. government and 48 states and districts accused the company of abusing its market power in social networking to crush smaller competitors.
The antitrust lawsuits were announced by the Federal Trade Commission and New York Attorney General Letitia James.
The FTC says Facebook has engaged in a "systematic strategy" to eliminate its competition, including by purchasing smaller up-and-coming rivals.
Facebook is the world's biggest social network with 2.7 billion users and a company with a market value of nearly 800 billion US dollars.
The city of Chengdu in southwest China reported no new local COVID-19 infections nor asymptomatic cases on Wednesday.
Since the new resurgence emerged on Monday, the city has traced over 430 close contacts and asymptomatic cases.
Swab samples have been collected from 344 people, with most results showing negative for COVID-19.
Nearly 400 thousand local residents have received nucleic acid tests and all tested negative for the coronavirus.
