Dustin Jones

Australia bailed on a submarine contract with France worth $66 billion last week, choosing instead to work with the United States and the United Kingdom. Outraged, France recalled its ambassadors to the U.S. and Australia.

For those in the Northern Hemisphere, summer will come to an end next Wednesday. Slowly but surely since the middle of June, days have been getting shorter. With the arrival of the autumn equinox comes cooler weather and a change of color amongst the trees. And Monday, two days before the official start of fall, the harvest moon.

Elon Musk's SpaceX set another aerospace first by launching Inspiration4, the first all-civilian mission to orbit, into space Wednesday. And after circling the planet some 45 times over three days, the crew has returned to Earth.

The Dragon spacecraft and its crew splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean off the Florida coast at 7:07 p.m. ET Saturday. SpaceX said the spacecraft earlier conducted two burns to drop its altitude from about 350 miles above the Earth's surface to about 226 miles.

On Aug. 22, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin called on the Civil Reserve Air Fleet to support evacuation efforts underway in Kabul. The Department of Defense needed help transporting U.S.

Facebook issued an apology on behalf of its artificial intelligence software that asked users watching a video featuring Black men if they wanted to see more "videos about primates." The social media giant has since disabled the topic recommendation feature and says it's investigating the cause of the error, but the video had been online for more than a year.

Nico Ali Walsh, grandson of boxing legend Muhammad Ali, will make his professional fighting debut Saturday night in Tulsa, Okla. And though the 21-year-old is aware of the clout carried by his name, he says he is boxing for himself — not for fame, or a fighter's purse.

California is implementing what it calls the "first in the nation" requirement that health care workers statewide be vaccinated against COVID-19.

The state is currently experiencing its fastest increase in coronavirus cases since the onset of the pandemic, with case rates "increasing ninefold in the last two months," according to the new order from the California Department of Public Health.

As coronavirus cases climb worryingly across the United States, a recent study shows that the number of children contracting the virus "steadily increased" in July.

A passenger aboard a Frontier Airlines flight has been charged with three counts of battery. The passenger is accused of inappropriately touching two female flight attendants and punching a male attendant on Saturday. The flight crew then restrained the unruly passenger and used tape to ensure he stayed seated for the remainder of the flight.

Belarusian sprinter Krystsina Tsimanouskaya was granted a Polish humanitarian visa while seeking political asylum after she refused to board a flight back to her home country from the Tokyo Games.

Pockets of the American West continued to burn over the weekend, as another nine large fires were reported on Saturday in California, Idaho, Montana and Oregon.

The 87 fires still active in 13 states have consumed more than 1.7 million acres. Just shy of 3 million acres have been scorched since the start of 2021, with months left in what experts predict will be a devastating fire season.

After removing herself from the women's team finals and the individual all-around competition, Simone Biles — America's most accomplished gymnast — announced late Friday she would not compete in the uneven bars or vault at the Tokyo games.

Civil rights leader Robert "Bob" Moses, a soft-spoken and self-effacing grassroots organizer who championed Black voting rights, died on Sunday at age 86.

Born and raised in Harlem, N.Y., Moses went to the South to join the nascent fight for civil rights in the early 1960s, ultimately becoming a central figure in the movement.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has appointed Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, one of the rare vocal critics inside the Republican Party of former President Donald Trump, to serve on the special committee charged with investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Out-of-state crews are headed to Montana to help fight massive fires there as the western part of the country continues to be ravaged by flames and drought.

More than 11 years after a bullet grazed by his head in Afghanistan, destroying his eardrum and singeing the side of his face, Joe Hardebeck has been awarded the Purple Heart.

But for a long time, the 33-year-old senior Navy corpsman's pride stood in the way. He hadn't really been shot or lost a limb. Hardebeck didn't believe he had been wounded badly enough to deserve the military's oldest award.

While rescuers continue to search for survivors amid the rubble from the building collapse in Surfside, Fla., law enforcement detectives and crime scene personnel are working to identify the human remains recovered from the wreckage.

Rescue workers in Surfside, Fla., recovered a body amongst the rubble of the partially collapsed Champlain Towers South on Saturday, bringing the death toll to five.

Authorities also notified the families of three previously unidentified victims, Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said Saturday evening, changing the total to 156 missing and 130 accounted for.

The Pacific Northwest will grapple with a dangerous and unprecedented heat wave this weekend. Record highs are expected with temperatures projected to climb to over 100 degrees. Excessive heat warnings are in effect for the upcoming week in Washington, Oregon, Idaho and parts of California and western Nevada.

Unrelenting rescue efforts are still underway in South Florida. Search and rescue workers and first responders have recovered four bodies from a 12-story building that partially collapsed early Thursday morning.

But 159 people were still unaccounted for as of Saturday. Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava remained optimistic of finding more survivors despite none being found in at least 24 hours.

President Biden says his "heart goes out" to the families anxiously waiting for updates as rescuers search for survivors in the rubble of the Champlain Towers South complex in Surfside, Fla.

Biden made the remarks Friday at a ceremony signing H.R. 49, designating the Pulse nightclub a national memorial in memory of the shooting where 49 people were killed in 2016.

­­On July 20, Amazon's founder and billionaire magnate Jeff Bezos and his brother Mark will board the New Shepard suborbital rocket system. The Bezos brothers, one auction winner with $28 million to spare, and a fourth person will become the first crew aboard the reusable rocket for its 11-minute voyage to space.

Since Bezos made the announcement about his journey to space this month, tens of thousands of people have come together to petition against his return to the planet.

Tropical Storm Claudette was downgraded to a tropical depression after battering the Southeast over the weekend. Heavy rains, high winds and flash flooding contributed to the deaths of 13 people in Alabama Saturday, and while the storm has weakened, it is expected to regain strength as it makes its way toward the East Coast.

For the first time in more than a decade, Israel has welcomed a new prime minister. Naftali Bennett was sworn in on Sunday after a new coalition unseated longtime Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu.

The newly elected prime minister was appointed by the Knesset, Israel's parliament, in a 60-59 vote, with one minister abstaining.

Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak met with members of the Nevada Indian Commission in Carson City on Friday as he signed legislation removing racially discriminatory identifiers or language from schools. Additionally, counties can no longer sound "sundown sirens," which once signified it was time for certain people to leave town.

The law will require schools to change any name, logo, mascot, song or identifier that is "racially discriminatory" or "associated with the Confederate States of America or a federally recognized Indian tribe."

The Pentagon confirmed Friday it will not allow rainbow pride flags to fly at military facilities in celebration of Pride Month. That fell in line with the Pentagon's 2020 decision to permit only certain flags at Department of Defense installations.

Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby told reporters the DOD chose not to make an exception to the existing flag policy after careful consideration.

The California Public Utilities Commission announced Friday that Cruise, a self-driving car service out of San Francisco, has been authorized to participate in the state's first pilot program to provide driverless ride services to the public.

The company is not allowed to charge passengers for rides.

Eight companies have permits for testing driverless vehicles in California, but Cruise is the only company approved for giving rides to passengers without a safety driver on board. However, the vehicles still have to have a link to a remote safety operator.

With the COVID-19 pandemic apparently coming to a close, many Americans are preparing for a no-holds-barred summer filled with many activities that the coronavirus has outlawed for more than a year. Here are some tips from the National Park Service to help visitors make the most their trip.

Plan Your Visit

Brazilian auto racer Helio Castroneves made history after winning his fourth Indianapolis 500 race on Sunday. He is now one of four drivers to win "The Greatest Spectacle in Racing" four times.

Castroneves, who took the checkered flag in 2001, 2002 and 2009, held off runner-up racer Alex Palou, winning by a mere .4928 of a second. Castroneves claimed his first three wins with Team Penske, but Sunday's win was the first Indy 500 win for Meyer Shank Racing.