The Starship spacecraft built by SpaceX returned from orbit and was caught by the mechanical arms of its launch tower at the Starbase site in south Texas.
It was the first time a spacecraft had been recovered in this way.
The vehicle came down through the clouds and slipped between the arms, often called chopstick arms, above Launch Pad 2.
This was the fifteenth test flight of the Starship system.
During the flight the spacecraft orbited the Earth fourteen times and released twenty-six satellites for the Starlink internet constellation.
The first stage, the Super Heavy booster, lifted the rocket with its Raptor engines and separated through a hot-staging manoeuvre, but its own return to the launch site failed.
SpaceX treats the catch as a step towards a fully reusable rocket, which is expected to cut the cost of each launch.
The company's spokesman described the recovery as the missing link in spaceflight.
Test flight:15th Starship test flightSatellites deployed:26 Starlink satellitesOrbits completed:14 orbits of the Earth
Why it matters for exams: SpaceX's Starship was caught by its launch tower at Starbase in Texas, with the Super Heavy booster as its first stage and Starlink satellites as its payload.
The Federal Aviation Administration ordered a nationwide ground stop that halted departures across the United States for more than four hours.
It was the longest nationwide ground stop in twenty-five years.
Officials said new technology being added to the air traffic control system overloaded older equipment, causing intermittent communications and gaps in radar coverage.
The Secretary of Transportation, Sean Duffy, said the trouble began while a contractor was replacing a section of old copper wire with fibre.
The Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration, Bryan Bedford, said air travel should be fully recovered by the end of the following Sunday.
An aviation consultant estimated that about a quarter of the forty-five thousand flights the United States handles each day were affected.
This was the first nationwide stop since January 2023 and the second since the attacks of September 2001.
The agency and its parent department are the durable facts here.
Duration:more than four hoursDaily US flights:45,000
Why it matters for exams: FAA expands to Federal Aviation Administration, it is headed by Bryan Bedford and it works under the United States Department of Transportation.
The White House has confirmed that the presidents of the United States, China and Russia will hold their first three-way meeting.
It is to take place at Shenzhen in China on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.
Nuclear arms control is on the agenda, along with the war in Iran.
The New START treaty between the United States and Russia lapsed in February, leaving the two arsenals without agreed limits for the first time in more than fifty years.
The American side wants a new arrangement that would also cover China; by the count of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Russia holds the most warheads, then the United States, then China.
Officials have said no agreement is expected from this meeting.
The planned meeting has been compared with the Yalta Conference of 1945, where the leaders of the United States, Britain and the Soviet Union shaped the post-war order.
The Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, called the planned meeting significant.
Venue:Shenzhen, ChinaTreaty that lapsed:New START
Why it matters for exams: APEC expands to Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, the summit is at Shenzhen, and New START was the arms control treaty between the United States and Russia that has lapsed.
Cape Verde, an island country in the Atlantic Ocean off West Africa, held its presidential election.
Six candidates were in the field and the incumbent, Jose Maria Neves, sought a second term.
A runoff is scheduled for 29 November if no candidate wins more than half the votes.
One of the candidates, the former Justice Minister Joana Rosa, backed by the Movement for Democracy, is the first woman to contest the presidency since independence from Portugal in 1975.
Most executive power there rests with the Prime Minister, who sets government policy, while the President is elected directly and can veto laws.
The archipelago is made up of ten volcanic islands and lies about 600 kilometres off the coast of Senegal.
Its population is about half a million, and nearly 77,000 Cape Verdeans abroad are on the electoral roll.
The country's capital is Praia.
Candidates:SixRunoff date:Nov. 29Distance from Senegal:approximately 600 kilometres
Why it matters for exams: Cape Verde is an Atlantic archipelago of ten volcanic islands with its capital at Praia, independent from Portugal since 1975, where the Prime Minister holds most executive power.
The President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said American negotiators asked whether Ukraine would withdraw from Donbas if it were to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
He said it was the first time the question had been put, and that it showed membership of the alliance was back on the agenda for his country.
Ukraine has long sought to join the alliance, a move Moscow treats as a red line.
The American envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff met the Russian and Ukrainian leaders separately after two days of delegation-level talks at Abu Dhabi that ended without a breakthrough.
Zelenskyy said he refused to cede territory, and that he would put such a question to a national referendum only if a full package of security guarantees, military and reconstruction funds were confirmed.
The talks produced an understanding that European countries will join future negotiations on ending the war.
At Dublin, Europe chose five countries - Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Poland - to send representatives to those talks.
The alliance's name and the Donbas region are the durable points.
Talks venue:Abu DhabiEuropean countries chosen at Dublin:five
Why it matters for exams: NATO expands to North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and Donbas is the eastern Ukrainian region at the centre of these negotiations.
The World Food Programme is providing hot meals to people evacuated from Oleshky, a town in Ukraine's southern Kherson region.
Hundreds of people were brought out in late October under a brief ceasefire and are now being examined and treated in Kyiv hospitals.
Staff and volunteers carry chicken soup, bread and buckwheat porridge through hospital corridors to the patients.
The agency and its Ukrainian partner, Iskra Dobra, were the first humanitarian responders to reach them with cooked food.
The agency's Country Director in Ukraine, Richard Ragan, said it was the first proper meal many of them had eaten in years.
Oleshky sat on the front line after the war began in 2022 and was cut off from humanitarian assistance, with food deliveries ending in May.
Evacuees described prices so high that a kilo of flour could cost twelve dollars.
Since the full-scale invasion of February 2022 the agency has provided the equivalent of 4.1 billion meals in Ukraine, and each month it reaches 357,000 people in frontline communities.
Region:Kherson region, southern UkraineLocal partner:Iskra Dobra
Why it matters for exams: The World Food Programme is the United Nations food assistance agency, its Country Director in Ukraine is Richard Ragan, and Oleshky lies in the Kherson region.
The Saudi-led coalition fighting the Houthis in Yemen said its air defences intercepted and destroyed two ballistic missiles launched towards Riyadh.
The coalition spokesman, Turki al-Maliki, said three drones were also shot down over Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province.
A day earlier he had reported the interception of two drones over Riyadh and the southern region.
The Houthis, an armed group also known as Ansar Allah, said they had brought down a coalition reconnaissance aircraft over al-Jawf.
Their military spokesman, Yahya Saree, said Yemeni-made surface-to-air missiles were used and that this was the fifth such aircraft downed since the escalation.
Saudi authorities say at least twenty-six people have been killed in drone and missile attacks in the kingdom since 23 September.
The reported targets have included Riyadh's King Khalid international airport, the East-West pipeline and oil infrastructure.
The group's other name and the province hit are the facts worth noting.
Intercepted:two ballistic missiles and three dronesDeaths in the kingdom since 23 September:at least 26
Why it matters for exams: The Houthis are also known as Ansar Allah, the Saudi-led coalition spokesman is Turki al-Maliki and the kingdom's oil region is the Eastern Province.
The twentieth Francophonie Summit is meeting at Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia.
The host country said three documents agreed at the Francophone Ministerial Conference have been placed before the heads of state and government.
The first is the Phnom Penh Declaration. It deals with peace, with states living side by side without conflict, and with joint work in society, culture, the economy and community life.
The second is a resolution on crises inside the Francophone community, taking in both the prevention of conflict and recovery once a crisis has passed.
The third, proposed by Cambodia, is the Phnom Penh Appeal, which puts the stress on protecting cultural heritage and promoting cultural diversity.
The three documents were to be taken up for adoption by the leaders.
The summit brings together the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie, which groups states and governments where French is spoken or widely used.
The leaders are also to choose the organisation's next secretary-general for a four-year term.
Summit:20th Francophonie SummitDocuments placed before leaders:three
Why it matters for exams: The twentieth Francophonie Summit is at Phnom Penh, where the Phnom Penh Appeal on cultural heritage was proposed by Cambodia alongside the Phnom Penh Declaration.
United Nations agencies have set out how farmers in Central America are being helped to withstand drought as a strong El Nino builds.
El Nino is a recurring natural phenomenon: the sea surface across the middle and eastern Pacific turns warmer than usual, and that moves rainfall and temperature patterns worldwide.
The World Meteorological Organization has said the current event could be unprecedented in strength.
In Central America it raises the risk of below-average rainfall and drought.
In Honduras the World Food Programme supported a community water reservoir and irrigation systems, with farmers contributing land for it.
Farmers were trained at Zamorano, the Pan-American Agricultural School in Honduras, in methods such as raising tilapia and growing plantains.
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations supplied agricultural tools.
Farmers who once grew only maize and beans now harvest in both the rainy and the dry season.
Training institution:Zamorano, the Pan-American Agricultural School in HondurasLand contributed by one farmer:five manzanas (about 3.5 hectares)
Why it matters for exams: El Nino is caused by unusually warm surface waters in the central and eastern Pacific Ocean, and the agencies named here are the World Meteorological Organization, the World Food Programme and the Food and Agriculture Organization.
Climate finance took the floor at COP31, the United Nations climate conference at Antalya in Turkiye.
The Secretary-General of the United Nations told reporters that even tripling adaptation finance would meet less than thirty per cent of what is needed.
He said climate disasters are erasing decades of development gains and pushing vulnerable countries deeper into debt.
He had met the heads of international climate funds the same day, urging them to cut the paperwork that makes their money hard to reach.
He also asked whether a world financial order drawn up in the years right after 1945 can be called fair, since few developing countries had a voice when it was built.
Simon Stiell, who heads UN Climate Change, told a ministerial meeting that many poorer countries cannot break out of a cycle in which debt, disaster and costly capital feed one another.
Under existing agreements developed countries are to lead the mobilisation of at least 300 billion dollars a year for developing nations by 2035, within a wider 1.3 trillion dollar goal.
An assessment presented at the conference suggests current trends fall short of that path.
Climate finance goal by 2035:at least $300 billion a yearWider goal:$1.3 trillion
Why it matters for exams: The UN climate conference at Antalya in Turkiye is where the 300 billion dollar a year climate finance goal for 2035, within a 1.3 trillion dollar target, was reviewed, with Simon Stiell as UN climate chief.