BEIJING (AP) — China’s space agency said Wednesday that its latest lunar explorer had arrived at the launch site in preparation for a mission to the moon in the first half of this year.

State broadcaster CCTV posted photos on its website of the unit under wraps as it was unloaded from a large cargo airplane earlier this week and then transported by flatbed truck to the Wenchang launch site on southern China’s Hainan island.

The announcement came a day after a U.S. company planned for Feb. 2

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans on Wednesday took the first step toward holding in contempt of Congress for . They advanced the charge to a full House vote just hours after the president’s son sparked a momentary political frenzy by appearing in the front row for part of the debate.

The House Oversight and Judiciary committees each passed contempt charges against the younger Biden with unanimous Republican support and all Democrats opposed. The action sets up a House vote on recommending criminal charges against a member of President Joe Biden’s family as the

WASHINGTON (AP) — pledged from Day One to restore truth and transparency to the federal government — but now it’s facing a maelstrom of criticism and credibility questions after Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s hospitalization .

The controversy has prompted a to prevent such failures and the Pentagon is scrutinizing its own procedures following the extraordinary lapse, which left even Austin’s top deputies unaware of his condition for days. Senior congressional Republicans are investigating to inform Congress, and Biden administration officials are privately fuming about Austin’s lack of

TOKYO (AP) — The that hit the western coastline of Japan on New Year’s has killed 213 people as of Thursday. Eight of the deaths were at evacuation centers, where rescued people died from injuries and sickness.

Such deaths weren’t directly caused by the . They happened in alleged safety.

“The pressures and stress of living in a place you aren’t used to lead to such deaths,” said Shigeru Nishimori, a disaster official in Ishikawa prefecture, the hardest-hit region

WAUKEE, Iowa (AP) — Snow was still piling on top of the 8 inches that had already accumulated when Kadee Miller trekked out to see Republican presidential candidate in Waukee.

“There were moments on the drive up here, I was like, ‘What are we doing?’” Miller said about her 7-mile (11-kilometer) drive from Adel on Tuesday. “The reason we drove up here is to really see who she is.”

Miller isn’t sure who she’ll

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — About a dozen armed militants attacked a police checkpoint on a northwestern highway before dawn Wednesday, killing three police officers and a civilian before fleeing the scene, authorities said.

The attack on the Lachi checkpoint on the Indus Highway in Kohat, a district in the restive Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan, triggered a shootout, said Jabir Khan, a local police official. Officers returned fire and a search was underway for the assailants, he added.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack,

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Just two Republican presidential candidates, former U.N. Ambassador and Florida Gov. , will Wednesday night. With just five days before the Iowa caucuses, the debate may be their last, best chance to change the trajectory of the race before voting begins.

The big front-runner, , was the only other candidate to meet the 10% polling threshold to participate. But as he has six times before, the Republican former president is declining to show up given his

BEIT RIMA, West Bank (AP) — Security camera video from a West Bank village shows a young man standing in a central square when he is suddenly shot and drops to the ground. Two others rushing to his aid are also hit, leaving a 17-year-old dead, moments before Israeli military jeeps roll in.

An Associated Press review of the video and interviews with the two wounded survivors showed Israeli soldiers opened fire on the three when they did not appear to pose a threat. One of the

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — In their most hostile encounter yet, and attacked each other early and often in Wednesday’s Republican primary debate rather than focus on Donald Trump, the absent front-runner, as both tried to demonstrate they were the strongest alternative to the former president.

DeSantis and Haley called each other liars and insulted each other’s records and character in the opening minutes of the debate. They seemed to relish the chance to go head to head without their lower-polling rivals interrupting,