At a news conference at the Johnson Space Center in Texas, NASA announced the astronauts assigned to crew the first flight tests and missions of commercial spaceflight launches, aboard the Boeing CST-100 Starliner and SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft, from Cape Canaveral, Florida, .
Why it matters: These crew members will be the first American astronauts to launch to space aboard rockets made in America, from American soil since the U.S. retired the Space Shuttle in 2011.
The fire whirl, or fire tornado, that swept into Redding, California on July 26, appears to have had winds as strong — if not stronger than — an EF-3 tornado, according to the National Weather Service.
Why it matters: The Carr Fire now ranks as one of the state's largest and most destructive wildfires on record. The extreme fire behavior exhibited on July 26 allowed the blaze to jump a natural fire break — the Sacramento River, and enter the city of Redding. So far, the fire has claimed at least 6 lives.
