Four astronauts returned safely to Earth from the International Space Station early on Sunday in a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule, parachuting to splash-down in the Gulf of Mexico, NASA said.
Their return marked the end of the first crew rotation mission to the station by the Crew Dragon spacecraft, developed in partnership between NASA and Elon Musk's rocket company SpaceX, the agency said in a statement.
The crew - NASA's Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover and Shannon Walker, and Japan's Soichi Noguchi - had launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on November 15, propelled by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
The capsule, dubbed Resilience by the crew, splashed down in darkness off the coast of Panama City, Florida.
The mission was part of NASA's fledgling public-private partnership with SpaceX, the rocket company founded in 2002 by Musk, who is also CEO of electric car maker Tesla Inc.
Israel announced a major expansion of military operations in Gaza on Wednesday, saying large areas of the enclave would be seized and added to its security zones, accompanied by large-scale evacuation of population.
A fourth US Army soldier, who together with three others went missing in Lithuania last week when their vehicle sank in a peat bog, has been found dead, US and Lithuanian officials said on Tuesday.
The United Nations on Tuesday dismissed as "ridiculous" an assertion by Israel that there was enough food in the Gaza Strip to last for a long period of time, despite the closure of all 25 bakeries supported by the World Food Programme (WFP).
United Nations officials who surveyed earthquake damage in Myanmar urged the global community to ramp up aid before the looming monsoon season worsens already catastrophic conditions, with the death toll at 2,719 and expected to surpass 3,000.